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As interest in the rising number of newly characterized microbial genomes mounts, powerful computational tools become critical for the management and analysis of these data to enable strategies for such challenges as harvesting the potential of carbon-neutral bioenergy sources and coping with global climate change. The Integrated Microbial Genomes (IMG) data management system developed by the U.S. Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute (DOE JGI) addresses this challenge with the release of version 2.1.

On the road to making biofuels more economically competitive with fossil fuels, there are significant potholes to negotiate. For cellulosic ethanol production, one major detour has being addressed with the characterization of the genetic blueprint of the fungus Pichia stipitis, by the U.S. Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute (DOE JGI) and collaborators at the U.S. Forest Service, Forest Products Laboratory. The research is featured in the March 4 advanced online publication of Nature Biotechnology.

In an effort to detect biological threats quickly and accurately, a number of detection technologies have been developed.

The development of hydrogen fuel cells for vehicles, the ultimate green dream in transportation energy, is another step closer. Researchers with the US Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and Argonne National Laboratory have identified a new variation of a familiar platinum-nickel alloy that is far and away the most active oxygen-reducing catalyst ever reported.

On the one-year anniversary of the launch of the experimental metagenome data management and analysis system, IMG/M, the US Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute (DOE JGI) has released the latest upgrade.

The active ingredient in a drug currently being tested to treat rheumatoid arthritis might also one day serve as an effective means of treating one of the deadliest forms of breast cancer. Berkeley Lab researchers have demonstrated that inhibiting the activity of the protease enzyme known as TACE can deprive tumor cells of a key factor needed for their proliferation. TACE is strongly present in a form of breast cancer which responds poorly to current therapies.

A new technique for capturing the short-lived but critical "intermediate" compounds that help carry chemical reactions which take place in aqueous solution from their starting point to the final product has been developed by researchers with the US Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab). This technique basically entails temporarily trapping the elusive transients inside molecular pyramids.

George Smoot of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory has been awarded the Daniel Chalonge Medal by the International School of Astrophysics "Daniel Chalonge," known as the Chalonge School. The handsome bronze medal was awarded "for George Smoot's 15-year support and outstanding contributions to the Chalonge School." The school offers summer and fall programs in cutting-edge topics in cosmology and astrophysics to graduate and postdoctoral students. It was established in 1991 to honor the pioneering French astrophysicist.