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Iron-rich Microbial Mats’ Main Players: Marsarchaeota

Novel archaeal lineage found in Yellowstone may have been important in early Earth conditions. The Science Through a combination of sequencing tools and techniques applied to samples collected from acidic iron-oxide microbial mats in Yellowstone National Park over time, researchers have discovered and characterized a novel phylum-level lineage of archaea with at least two major… [Read More]

May 30 JGI Safety & Wellness Fair in the Shadelands

The Joint Genome Institute (JGI) is hosting its 12th Annual Safety and Wellness (SWELL) Fair on Wednesday, May 30, and welcomes attendees from both staff and neighbors in the Shadelands. Click here to download a map.  WHEN: Wednesday, May 30, 2018, from 12pm-2pm WHERE: Joint Genome Institute Courtyard (2800 Mitchell Drive, Walnut Creek) The free SWELL Fair (click… [Read More]

Rethinking Agriculture from an Ecosystem Perspective

As the global population grows toward 10 billion people, we need to find ways to better manage the farmland that we have, while also removing CO2 from the atmosphere, said Evan DeLucia at JGI’s 13th Annual Genomics of Energy & Environment Meeting in San Francisco, Calif. As director of the Center for Advanced Bioenergy and Bioproducts… [Read More]

Assessing Soil Microbial Responses to Land Use Change

In a wide ranging talk that took the audience from the island of Manhattan to Southeast Asia, Krista McGuire, an associate professor in the Department of Biology at the University of Oregon, presented work on microbial responses to two key types of land use change: urbanization and agriculture. Most of the world’s population now resides… [Read More]

Freedom and Flexibility: Thinking Outside the Cell for Functional Genomics

Latest JGI-Funded Technology Development Proposal Focuses on Cell-Free Systems Over the past two decades, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Joint Genome Institute (JGI), a DOE Office of Science User Facility at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, has transitioned from a high-throughput genome sequencing center to a national user facility that provides researchers around the world… [Read More]

A Reference Catalog for the Rumen Microbiome

Cultivation and sequencing effort targets economically and environmentally relevant microbes. The digestive tracts of ruminant (cud-chewing) animals such as cattle, sheep, and goats convert lignocellulosic plant matter to short-chain fatty acids used for nourishment with unparalleled efficiency, thanks to the activity of symbiotic microbes in the rumen. Rumen microbes play a vital role in allowing… [Read More]

Determining the Citrus Ancestral Home

Citrus is a major worldwide crop. In 2017, the US Department of Agriculture’s Foreign Agricultural Service estimated production would exceed 50 million metric tons, with 10 percent of that contributed by the United States. To defend this crop against Huanglongbing (a.k.a., citrus greening), an infectious disease destroying whole orchards, researchers have begun employing genomics to… [Read More]

Tobias Erb, Max Planck Institute for Terrestrial Microbiology

How long have you collaborated with the JGI?  We have been collaborating with JGI since 2015. We are supported by the JGI DNA Synthesis program. The DNA Synthesis team at JGI provides us with synthetic genes, which we then test in our laboratory for their function. Our project aims at characterizing a new class of… [Read More]

Tracking Microbial Diversity Through the Terrestrial Subsurface

Metabolic functions of microbial communities vary during a geyser eruption. Deep underground, the earth beneath our feet is teeming with microbial life, the majority of which has yet to be characterized. Cut off from sunlight, these enigmatic organisms must obtain life-sustaining energy and carbon, which all living cells need, through other means. A pressing question… [Read More]

IMG/VR Database Triples in Size

Got 12 Gb of free storage to download it all? To better understand how Earth’s vast and diverse microbial population helps regulate global nutrient cycles, it helps to understand how viruses infect microbes, and affect their functions and metabolic processes. Two years ago, even though the number of viruses is estimated to be at least… [Read More]