WALNUT CREEK, CA— The U.S. Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute (DOE JGI) has released a complete draft assembly of the soybean (Glycine max) genetic code, making it widely available to the research community to advance new breeding strategies for one of the world’s most valuable plant commodities.  Soybean not only accounts for 70 percent… [Read More]

WALNUT CREEK, CA—Diatoms, mighty microscopic algae, have profound influence on climate, producing 20 percent of the oxygen we breathe by capturing atmospheric carbon and in so doing, countering the greenhouse effect.  Since their evolutionary origins these photosynthetic wonders have come to acquire advantageous genes from bacterial, animal and plant ancestors enabling them to thrive in… [Read More]

WALNUT CREEK, CA—Mostly hidden from the scrutiny of the naked eye, microbes have been said to run the world.  The challenge is how best to characterize them given that less than one percent of the estimated hundreds of millions of microbial species can be cultured in the laboratory. The answer is metagenomics—an increasingly popular approach… [Read More]

WALNUT CREEK, CA—As Aesop said, appearances are deceiving—even in life’s tiniest critters.  From first detection in the 1880s, clinging to the sides of an aquarium, to its recent characterization by the U.S. Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute (DOE JGI), a simple and primitive animal, Trichoplax adhaerens, appears to harbor a far more complex suite… [Read More]

WALNUT CREEK, CA—Today’s powerful sequencing machines can rapidly read the genomes of entire communities of microbes, but the challenge is to extract meaningful information from the jumbled reams of data. In a paper appearing in Nature Biotechnology August 17, a collaboration headed by researchers at the University of Washington and the U.S. Department of Energy… [Read More]

WALNUT CREEK, CA—Genomics is accelerating improvements for converting plant biomass into biofuel—as an alternative to fossil fuel for the nation’s transportation needs, reports Eddy Rubin, Director of the U.S. Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute (DOE JGI), in the August 14 edition of the journal Nature. In “Genomics of cellulosic biofuels,” Rubin lays out a… [Read More]

WALNUT CREEK, CA—The bane of military quartermasters may soon be a boon to biofuels producers. The genome analysis of a champion biomass-degrading fungus has revealed a surprisingly minimal repertoire of genes that it employs to break down plant cell walls, highlighting opportunities for further improvements in enzymes customized for biofuels production. The results were published… [Read More]