[N]one of the projects investigating those potential benefits would be possible without the entire sea sponge genome sequence, which Professor Degnan’s lab successfully mapped and will be publishing this year. “We and our colleagues at the Joint Genome Institute (US Department of Energy) are the ones who drove this project which really puts us in…
JGI’s Jonathan Eisen in iSGTW
In metagenomics, scientists grind up samples containing many different organisms and extract all the DNA they can, not knowing which pieces of DNA came from which organisms. A one-gram soil sample can contain up to several million species of microbes all mixed together. The scientists sequence small, random fragments of the DNA to identify species…
JGI’s Jonathan Eisen on the new “worst ‘-omics’ word” award
And the winner of the “worst new omics word award” is [available at Eisen’s blog]…. Amazingly, I missed this when the New York Times used it in a headline… Eisen’s blog on the new word and its meaning has also been picked up by GenomeWeb.
JGI Summer 2009 Primer now available for download
Featuring, in no particular order: Micromonas algae and the global carbon cycle the brown-rot fungus Postia placenta JGI researchers call for standards in genome sequencing and annotation at a conference in Santa Fe, NM studying the Great Salt Lake in Utah on JGI User Meeting keynotes by Chris Somerville, Craig Venter and George Church, plus…
JGI/AgResearch collaboration on TVNZ
New Zealand scientists trying to find a cost-effective way of reducing livestock emissions of major greenhouse gases, nitrous oxide and methane, are to be given a helping hand by American researchers. The US Department of Energy’s joint genome institute (JGI) is helping researchers have the DNA of microbes in the forestomach (rumen) of livestock animals…
Texan termite hindgut project part of JGI’s CSP 2010
Dr. Jorge Rodrigues, a University of Texas at Arlington microbiologist, has been selected for a highly competitive genome sequencing project by the U.S. Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute. Rodrigues will sequence the genome of a microorganism isolated from a termite’s hindgut as part of an effort to identify solutions to climate change. The Joint…
DOE JGI’s Phil Hugenholtz at “Microbes at UQ” Symposium
Keynote speaker Dr Phil Hugenholtz will be describing recent advances in the metagenomic analysis of the microbial communities within the termite hind-gut, following on from work published in Nature in 2007. The stomachs of termites actually harbor a gold mine of microbes that have now been tapped as a rich source of enzymes for improving…
Nikos Kyrpides on microbial genomics
Microbes contribute to manifold human endeavors ranging from bioenergy to agriculture to medicine. Moreover, they make the Earth’s biogeochemical cycles go round, a prerequisite for all life on the planet. Exceedingly numerous, they are also extremely diverse, encompassing most of Earth’s total biodiversity. So it should come as no surprise to find that two-thirds of…
Exploring Standards to Advance Microbial Genomics
WALNUT CREEK, CA—Microbes contribute to manifold human endeavors ranging from bioenergy to agriculture to medicine. Moreover, they make the Earth’s biogeochemical cycles go round, a prerequisite for all life on the planet. Exceedingly numerous, they are also extremely diverse, encompassing most of Earth’s total biodiversity. So it should come as no surprise to find that…
Community genome project on MSNBC
The genomes of 17 different ants, fungi and bacteria that eat through hundreds of pounds of leaf matter a year could ultimately lead to new techniques for making biofuels. Scientists from the University of Wisconsin, the Joint Genome Institute and Emory University are sequencing the first-ever community genome, searching for clues to how what’s essentially…