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Content Tagged "Simon Prochnik"

DOE JGI’s Prochnik in Discovery News

“This one-celled organism hunts and eats bacteria as an amoeba, swims around looking for a better environment as a flagellate, and then hunkers down and waits for good times as a cyst,” said Simon Prochnik, a computational scientist at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Joint Genome Institute. “It is a very rare process to go… [Read More]

GreenCut2: Algorithm to ID Plant Protein Functions

Researchers use genome sequencing to inform various cellular processes in land plants and algae, including the details of photosynthesis.  Despite the access to an increasing number of plant genomes (most of which have been generated by the DOE JGI), it remains difficult to correlate protein information with function, until now.  For example, identifying the role… [Read More]

GreenCut algorithm in e! Science News

Using advanced computational tools to analyze the genomes of 28 different plants and photosynthetic organisms, Grossman and his colleagues at the University of California in Los Angeles and the Joint Genome Institute of the Department of Energy were able to identify 597 proteins encoded on plant and green algal genomes, but that are not present… [Read More]

Volvox carteri project on Astrobiology magazine

“If you think of proteins in terms of lego bricks, Chlamydomonas already had a great lego set,” says James Umen, assistant professor in the Plant Molecular and Cellular Biology Laboratory at the Salk Institute. “Volvox didn’t have to buy a new one, and instead could experiment with what it had inherited from its ancestor.”  Read… [Read More]

Volvox carteri project on NCTimes.com Blog

The study was published in the July 9 issue of Science. It may also be pertinent to the ongoing development of algae as a biofuel petroleum replacement, a major focus of research in San Diego and at the federal level. The team compared the genome of Volvox, a multicellular spherical algae, with that of the… [Read More]

Volvox carteri project in Algae Industry Magazine

One contribution that may inform biofuels research is reported in the July 9 issue of Science, where researchers led by the DOE Joint Genome Institute (JGI) and the Salk Institute presented the 138 million nucleotide genome of Volvox carteri, a multicellular alga that captures light energy through photosynthesis. The DOE is supporting research into the… [Read More]

Volvox carteri project on Biology News Net

Prochnik points to both Volvox and Chlamydomonas as experimentally tractable model organisms where the information will be widely used, even by researchers who are not necessarily interested in Volvox biology. “Having the Volvox genome is a fantastic resource for directing further research towards our target areas of interest. With this pair of algal genomes in… [Read More]

Volvox carteri project on Genetics Times

“The fundamental developmental biology interest in studying the Volvocine algae is that a single cell ancestor has evolved multicellularity and complicated cellular processes in a short evolutionary period,” explained DOE JGI bioinformaticist and co-first author Simon Prochnik. What the team found, he said, is “an astonishing lack of innovation” in the Volvox genome when compared… [Read More]

Volvox carteri project on SciCasts

The DOE said that the organization is currently supporting research into the complex mechanisms present in photosynthetic organisms to better understand how they convert sunlight to energy and how photosynthetic cells control their metabolic processes so that this information can inform the production of renewable biofuels. This research that may inform biofuels research was reported… [Read More]

Volvox carteri project on CORDIS Wire

This is due the fact that within the green algal order Chlamydomonadales there are closely related uni- and multicellular species, such as the two-flagellated unicellular model alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii and its sister taxon Volvox carteri, the latter being made up of more than 2,000 cells and having a much more complex life cycle on top… [Read More]