U.S. Department of Energy Research News

Public Release: 25-Jul-2013

PLOS ONE
Microbial who-done-it for biofuels
A multi-institutional collaboration led by researchers with the Joint BioEnergy Institute and Joint Genome Institute has developed a promising technique for identifying microbial enzymes that can effectively deconstruct biomass into fuel sugars under refinery processing conditions.

US Department of Energy Office of Science

Public Release: 19-Jul-2013

Nano Letters
Purple sunlight eaters
A protein found in the membranes of ancient microorganisms that live in desert salt flats could offer a new way of using sunlight to generate environmentally friendly hydrogen fuel, according to a new study by researchers at the US Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory.

US Department of Energy

Public Release: 14-Jul-2013

Nature
Boldly illuminating biology's 'dark matter'
Microbial dark matter comprises the invisible infrastructure of life that can have profound influences on the most significant environmental processes. By employing next generation DNA sequencing of single cell genomes, researchers are systematically filling in the bacterial and archaeal tree of life's uncharted branches. An international collaboration led by the US Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute has published the most recent findings from exploring microbial dark matter July 14, 2013, in the journal Nature.

US Department of Energy Office of Science

Public Release: 11-Jul-2013

Proceedings of the Royal Society B
50-year-old assumptions about strength muscled aside
New understanding of where muscles get their power from turns 50 years of strength belief on its head. New insight could aid everything from bodybuilding to cardiac care.

Department of Energy, NIH, National Science Foundation

Public Release: 26-Jun-2013

PLOS ONE
Salmonella infection is a battle between good and bad bacteria in the gut
A new study in PLOS ONE that examined food poisoning infection as-it-happens in mice revealed harmful bacteria, such as a common type of Salmonella, takes over beneficial bacteria within the gut amid previously unseen changes to the gut environment. The results provide new insights into the course of infection and could lead to better prevention or new treatments.

National Institutes of Health

Public Release: 19-Jun-2013

Molecular Systems Biology
Expressly unfit for the laboratory
A new Berkeley Lab study challenges the orthodoxy of microbiology, which holds that in response to environmental changes, bacterial genes will boost production of needed proteins and decrease production of those that aren't. The study found that for bacteria in the laboratory there was little evidence of adaptive genetic response.

US Department of Energy

Public Release: 12-Jun-2013

Nature
Genetic maps of ocean algae show bacteria-like flexibility
A seven-year effort by 75 researchers from 12 countries to map the genome of the coccolithophore, Emiliania huxleyi, has revealed a set of core genes that mix and match with a set of variable genes that likely allows E. huxleyi, or Ehux, to adapt to different environments. Their results are described in the latest issue of Nature.

US Department of Energy's Joint Genome Institute

Public Release: 27-May-2013

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Salmonella uses protective switch during infection
For the first time, researchers have found a particular kind of molecular switch in the food poisoning bacteria Salmonella Typhimurium under infection-like conditions. This switch, using a process called S-thiolation, appears to be used by the bacteria to respond to changes in the environment during infection and might protect it from harm, researchers report this week online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Early Edition.

National Institutes of Health

Public Release: 15-May-2013
The DOE Joint Genome Institute expands capabilities via new partnerships
Positioning itself to provide the most current technology and expertise to their users in order to address pressing energy and environmental scientific challenges, the DOE Joint Genome Institute announces six projects with which to launch the Emerging Technologies Opportunity Program. These new partnerships span the development of new scalable DNA synthesis technologies to the latest approaches to high throughput sequencing and characterization of single microbial cells from complex environmental samples.

DOE Office of Science

Public Release: 5-May-2013

Nature Methods
A new cost-effective genome assembly process
Genome assembly, the molecular equivalent of trying to put together a multi-million piece jigsaw puzzle without knowing what the picture on the cover of the box is, remains challenging due to the very large number of very small pieces, which must be assembled using current approaches. As reported May 5 online in the journal Nature Methods, a collaboration involving DOE JGI researchers has resulted in an improved and fully automated workflow for genome assembly.

US Department of Energy

Public Release: 23-Apr-2013
Fertilizer that fizzles in a homemade bomb could save lives around the world
A Sandia engineer who trained US soldiers to avoid improvised explosive devices has developed a fertilizer that helps plants grow but can't detonate a bomb.

Public Release: 4-Apr-2013
Energy Department announces 5-year renewal of funding for Bioenergy Research Centers
The US Department of Energy today announced it would fund its three Bioenergy Research Centers for an additional five-year period, subject to continued congressional appropriations. The three Centers are the BioEnergy Research Center led by Oak Ridge National Laboratory, the Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center led by the University of Wisconsin-Madison in partnership with Michigan State University, and the Joint BioEnergy Institute led by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

US Department of Energy