Search
Scientists announce comprehensive regional diagnostic of microbial ocean life using DNA testing
Scientists at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego, the J. Craig Venter Institute (JCVI), and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) used tools of genetics research akin to those used in genealogical research to evaluate the diversity of marine life off the California coast. Ceratium sp. dinoflagellates, imaged from seawater collected in waters offshore San Diego, that typify the California Current Ecosystems phytoplankton assemblage. Image courtesy...
Towards a comprehensive structural variation map of an individual human genome.
Several genomes have now been sequenced, with millions of genetic variants annotated. While significant progress has been made in mapping single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and small (
Human Microbiome Research has Massive Potential for Health Applications
Thirteen years ago, a team led by J. Craig Venter Institute President, Karen Nelson, Ph.D., published the first major human microbiome study, radically changing the way we look at human health and the role the microbes that inhabit each of us play in disease. This seminal publication was a tipping point that lead to numerous new areas of research. Currently, only 1% of all microbiomes are guiding applications in health, food systems and ecosystem resources, leaving enormous...
MTGD: The Medicago truncatula genome database.
Medicago truncatula, a close relative of alfalfa (Medicago sativa), is a model legume used for studying symbiotic nitrogen fixation, mycorrhizal interactions and legume genomics. J. Craig Venter Institute (JCVI; formerly TIGR) has been involved in M. truncatula genome sequencing and annotation since 2002 and has maintained a web-based resource providing data to the community for this entire period. The website (http://www.MedicagoGenome.org) has seen major updates in the past year, where it...
San Diego Unified STEAM Leadership Series and the Salk Institute for Biological Studies Present: “The Places Your Imagination Takes You”—The 5th Annual Women in Biotech at the Salk
SAN DIEGO—On Wednesday, November 13th, the Salk Institute for Biological Studies will host the 5th Annual Women in Biotech with the San Diego Unified STEAM Leadership Series. Dr. Karen J. Nelson, president of the J. Craig Venter Institute will keynote, followed by an all-women panel from Illumina, the non-profit Match Your Need, and Salk Institute—300 young women from eight San Diego High schools will be welcomed by District Superintendent Cindy Marten, as part of the 18th event in...
TIGR President Wins ASM's Promega Biotechnology Research Award
June 6, 2005 TIGR President and Director Claire M. Fraser, Ph.D., has been awarded the 2005 Promega Biotechnology Research Award at the annual meeting of the American Society for Microbiology (ASM), the nation's largest life sciences society. The award honors Fraser for her "outstanding contributions to the application of biotechnology through fundamental microbiological research and development." In accepting the award Monday, Fraser delivered a lecture at the ASM's 105th General...
Genomic Workshop for Native American College students
A Genomic Science Workshop was held last week (May 24-26, 2016) at the J Craig Venter Institute Rockville campus for a group of ten Native American college students. The students participated in two full-day intensive training activities learning how to study the “microbiome” of natural water sources. Each student had the chance to perform hands-on lab work including DNA isolation from an environmental water source, PCR of the 16S ribosomal RNA gene, and gel electrophoresis....
SARS-CoV-2 Mutation Tracking
The Bacterial Viral Bioinformatic Resource Center (BV-BRC) is proud to introduce a new resource with the goal of providing live tracking of SARS-CoV-2 mutations. This real-time resource will provide regular reports focused on “Variants and Lineages of Concern” (VoCs/LoCs), and will serve as an early warning system for variants that are increasing in frequency in specific geographical locations.
It's all relative: ranking the diversity of aquatic bacterial communities.
The study of microbial diversity patterns is hampered by the enormous diversity of microbial communities and the lack of resources to sample them exhaustively. For many questions about richness and evenness, however, one only needs to know the relative order of diversity among samples rather than total diversity. We used 16S libraries from the Global Ocean Survey to investigate the ability of 10 diversity statistics (including rarefaction, non-parametric, parametric, curve extrapolation and...