Latest Metagenomics Stories

B. Franz Lang and Mohamed Hijri break new ground in environmental genomics Take a Petri dish containing crude petroleum and it will release a strong odor distinctive of the toxins that make up the fossil fuel. Sprinkle mushroom spores over the Petri dish and let it sit for two weeks in an incubator, and surprise, the petroleum and its smell will disappear. "The mushrooms consumed the petroleum!" says Mohamed Hijri, a professor of biological sciences and researcher at the University of...

According to roadside signs, the number of burgers served has eclipsed the billion mark, while the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Joint Genome Institute (JGI) will now serve up trillions of nucleotides of information from scores of newly-selected projects geared to feed the data-hungry worldwide research community. The 2012 Community Sequencing Program (CSP) call invited researchers to submit proposals for projects that advance capabilities in fields such as plant-microbe interactions,...

World class scientist Professor Willem M. de Vos will explain next Monday how the microbes that are closest to our hearts – gut microbes – could underpin a new way of thinking about human biology. As well as looking at our own genes, we can now include those of our microbes in studies of human health and disease. This is a significant shift in the way we approach human biology. Gut microbes affect our health by producing vitamins, priming our immune system and contributing to...

Facility will be LEED Platinum Certified and will be on the University of California, San Diego Campus SAN DIEGO, Sept. 20, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The J. Craig Venter Institute (JCVI), a not-for-profit genomics research institute, today held an official groundbreaking ceremony for their new California facility. The JCVI building, designed by ZGF Architects, will be a state-of-the-art, "ultra-green" 45,000 square foot, highly adaptable, wet laboratory and computational laboratory...

Understanding the flow and processing of carbon in the world's oceans, which cover 70 percent of Earth's surface, is central to understanding global climate cycles, with many questions remaining unanswered. Between 200 and 1,000 meters below the ocean surface exists a "twilight zone" where insufficient sunlight penetrates for microorganisms to perform photosynthesis. Despite this, it is known that microbes resident at these depths capture carbon dioxide that they then use to form cellular...

The Alkek Center for Metagenomics and Microbiome Research at Baylor College of Medicine, under the direction of Dr. Joseph Petrosino, builds on local expertise in the study of how the microbiota that colonize the human body (the microbiome) impact health and disease.The center is coordinating and leading research and development efforts in this area across the college, the Texas Medical Center and with collaborators from around the United States and abroad.Established in January of 2011, the...

Prospecting for new and unusual cellulose-digesting enzymes for biofuels productionBy Robert Sanders, UC BerkeleyBioprospectors from the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of Maryland School of Medicine have found a microbe in a Nevada hot spring that happily eats plant material "“ cellulose "“ at temperatures near the boiling point of water.In fact, the microbe's cellulose-digesting enzyme, called a cellulase, is most active at a record 109 degrees Celsius (228...

Carbon dioxide may be the most name-dropped greenhouse gas, but methane is 20 times more potent. In 2009, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency calculated that 20 percent of the nation's human-related methane emissions were attributable to livestock digestive processes. In Australia, livestock emissions account for 12 percent of the country's total greenhouse gas emissions.To understand how methane is produced in livestock, an international team of scientists including researchers at...

Software delivers genome center results in variant detection and metagenomic analysis of next generation sequencing (NGS) data. Provides unparalleled speed and sensitivity in comprehensive pipelines while supporting Illumina, Complete Genomics and Roche 454. Available immediately for free at http://www.realtimegenomics.com. San Francisco, CA (PRWEB) June 21, 2011 Real Time Genomics, Inc., today announced the immediate availability of RTG Investigator Version 2.2, the most advanced...

Scientists use new imaging technique to reveal complex microbial interactionsEven the merest of microbes must be able to talk, to be able to interact with its environment and with others to not just survive, but to thrive. This cellular chatter comes in the form of signaling molecules and exchanged metabolites (molecules involved in the process of metabolism or living) that can have effects far larger than the organism itself. Humans, for example, rely upon thousands of products derived from...