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J. Craig Venter Institute-led Team Awarded 5-year, $10.7 M Grant from U.S. Department of Energy to Optimize Metabolic Networks in Diatoms, Enabling Next-Generation Biofuels and Bioproducts
Research builds on a series of recent landmark studies, at JCVI, which have led to transformative new methodology for synthetic biology and functional genomics
Don't blame your genes for your toothache, twin study shows
For the first time, investigators have looked at the role that genes and the oral microbiome play in the formation of cavities and have found that your mother was right: The condition of your teeth depends on your dietary and oral hygiene habits. The study appears September 13 in Cell Host & Microbe.
Precision medicine opens the door to scientific wellness preventive approaches to suicide
Researchers have developed a more precise way of diagnosing suicide risk, by developing blood tests that work in everybody, as well as more personalized blood tests for different subtypes of suicidality that they have newly identified, and for different psychiatric high-risk groups.
Defining Standards for Genomes from Uncultivated Microorganisms
Expanding minimum information standards for single-cell genomics, metagenomics datasets.
Energy Department Announces up to $8 Million to Enable Breakthroughs in Algae-Based Biofuels
Scripps Institution of Oceanography, and the J. Craig Venter Institute, Global Algae Innovations will deliver a tool for low cost, rapid analysis of pond microbiota, gather data on the impacts of pond ecology, and develop new cultivation methods that utilize this information to achieve greater algal productivity.
Scientists from J. Craig Venter Institute and Scripps Institution of Oceanography Publish Study Describing Function and Mechanisms of Diatom Centromeres
Research provides basic but essential information about how diatom chromosomes are replicated and maintained
Digital-to-Biological Converter for On-Demand Production of Biologics Developed by Synthetic Genomics, Inc.
The first fully automated machine to convert digital code into functional biologics without human intervention creates entirely new avenues for precision medicine
Intestinal Fungi Worsen Alcoholic Liver Disease
Reducing intestinal fungi slowed disease progression in mice
JCVI President, Karen Nelson Elected to National Academy of Sciences
Stool Microbes Predict Advanced Liver Disease
Proof-of-concept study suggests a noninvasive test for specific microbial population patterns could be used to detect advanced nonalcoholic fatty liver disease
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Around Mac-town
We are now fully packed and our mobile research sled is ready to go. We are waiting for some final repairs on the Pisten-Bully which will pull our supply sled. The mobile laboratory sled will be pulled by the Sno-Cat Tucker, which also has cab space for six (riding in the mobile lab would...
Ice diatoms!
Today has been a day of preparations, as tomorrow we hope to leave McMurdo Station and head out on the sea ice. Our mobile sled is almost ready for deployment: the carpenters who work for the US Antarctic Program are quite amazing, and our sled has filtration racks for separating different...
Sea-ice class
Today Abigail Noble and I took a Hagglund transporter out onto the Ross Sea to learn the basics of sea ice safety and ice dynamics. The sea ice on McMurdo Sound can be 2 meters thick, but this ice is constantly changing, and when you drive along its surface, you can't assume that it is...
Happy Camp
Our project on the Ross Sea will take us far from heated facilities of McMurdo Station, so all members of our team need to attend "Happy Camp", a two day course on snow camping and basic Antarctic survival. Happy Camp is held out on the McMurdo Ice Shelf, and it is an immersion program in...
McMurdo Station
Entering McMurdo is like entering a modern mining town: lots of exposed rock and unpaved streets, above ground utilities and bare-bones architecture. Utilitarian. From the airport we were taken to a briefing room, introduced to our science coordinators, and given our shcedules. Since I am...
Transport to the ice
Wednesday morning started with a 5AM taxi ride to the US Antarctic Program's processing center at the Christchurch airport, where we had to repack our bags and put on our emergency cold weather gear for the flight. Our plane was the C-17 Globemaster III, a large military transport plane more...
Polynya opens in the Ross Sea
A helicopter pilot recently sent us an image of the area we are planning to sample, and the stable sea ice we intended to use as a platform for drilling and sampling is now a giant stretch of open seawater! A large opening like this is a polynya, a term borrowed from the Russian...
Christchurch, New Zealand
Greetings from Christchurch, New Zealand, the anteroom to Antarctica. My colleagues and I have been here for several days now, running last minute errands, getting equipped with cold weather gear, and waiting for a flight south to McMurdo Station. The flight here was remarkable only in it's...
Why Antarctica, and why now?
So why are you going to Antarctica, and why are you going now? A very logical question... basically we are traveling to Antarctica to study microscopic marine plants known as phytoplankton. These organisms range in size from bacteria to diatoms to colonial algae, but all phytoplankton have two...
Trip preparations (inaugural posting!)
Well, we have less than a week left, and we are finalizing and shipping the chemicals and equipment we will need for sampling below the sea ice in the Ross Sea. We have already shipped out several hundred pounds of gear, and more await us in storage down at McMurdo Station in Antarctica....
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Can CRISPR help stop African Swine Fever?
Gene editing could create a successful vaccine to protect against the viral disease that has killed close to 2 million pigs globally since 2021.
Getting Under the Skin
Amid an insulin crisis, one project aims to engineer microscopic insulin pumps out of a skin bacterium.
Planet Microbe
There are more organisms in the sea, a vital producer of oxygen on Earth, than planets and stars in the universe.
The Next Climate Change Calamity?: We’re Ruining the Microbiome, According to Human-Genome-Pioneer Craig Venter
In a new book (coauthored with Venter), a Vanity Fair contributor presents the oceanic evidence that human activity is altering the fabric of life on a microscopic scale.
Lessons from the Minimal Cell
“Despite reducing the sequence space of possible trajectories, we conclude that streamlining does not constrain fitness evolution and diversification of populations over time. Genome minimization may even create opportunities for evolutionary exploitation of essential genes, which are commonly observed to evolve more slowly.”
Even Synthetic Life Forms With a Tiny Genome Can Evolve
By watching “minimal” cells regain the fitness they lost, researchers are testing whether a genome can be too simple to evolve.
Privacy concerns sparked by human DNA accidentally collected in studies of other species
Two research teams warn that human genomic “bycatch” can reveal private information
Scientists Unveil a More Diverse Human Genome
The “pangenome,” which collated genetic sequences from 47 people of diverse ethnic backgrounds, could greatly expand the reach of personalized medicine.
First human ‘pangenome’ aims to catalogue genetic diversity
Researchers release draft results from an ongoing effort to capture the entirety of human genetic variation.
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