JGI in the News

August 20, 2008
Gut Reactions. The termite’s stomach, of all things, has become the focus of large-scale scientific investigations. Could the same properties that make the termite such a costly pest help us solve global warming? (TheAtlantic.com)

August 1, 2008
Termite Bellies and Biofuels. Scientist Falk Warnecke's research into termite digestion may hold solutions to our energy crisis. (Smithsonian.com)

July 8, 2008
JGI’s 2009 Community Sequencing Program Marks Shift from Sanger to New Platforms. For next year's CSP, which accounts for about half of JGI's sequencing activities, the institute has selected 44 projects, including genomes of eukaryotes, bacteria, and archaea, as well as metagenomic analyses. More than half of the sequencing data will be generated on Illumina's Genome Analyzer, about a quarter on 454's platform, and less than 15 percent by Sanger sequencing. (In Sequence, GenomeWeb)

February 27, 2008
Genome institute unveils Walnut Creek expansion. The U.S. Department of Energy facility has increased its staff and extended its lease in the Shadelands Business Park. It unveiled an 18,000-square-foot expansion Wednesday, highlighted by a ribbon-cutting performed by a robot. (San Jose Mercury News)

February 14, 2008
Designer Biofuels. KQED's Quest series examines San Francisco Bay Area research into biofuels. (QUEST is a TV, radio, web, and education series by KQED that explores science, environment and nature in Northern California.)

June 21, 2007
Biofuels: Beyond Corn; Gene sequencing could help make more energy-efficient biofuels practical. (MIT Technology Review) In an attempt to find cheaper and more efficient routes to biofuels, researchers are turning to genomics.

March 6, 2007
Unlocking clean, cheap energy. California scientists are playing key roles in developing new energy technologies to counteract the effects of global warming. . . . In the East Bay, scientists at U.S. Energy Department laboratories are exploring ways to use enzymes, microbes and even termites to generate more commercially appealing forms of biofuel such as ethanol. (San Francisco Chronicle)

February 18, 2007
Scientists working on 'buggy' biofuel. Barely a year ago, when President Bush first endorsed biofuels as an answer to the nation's "addiction to oil," scientists already were salivating at biologically engineering ordinary grasses and trees into full-blown energy crops. (InsideBayArea)

February 17, 2007
How biology will help fill your fuel tank. Scientists looking for new enzymes to boost biofuel production and help America kick its addiction to imported oil say they have found hundreds of prospects in the unlikeliest of places: bug guts. (MSNBC)

February 17, 2007
Climate change fuels appetite for political solutions. Can switchgrass and termites improve foreign relations? In the wake of this month's landmark report naming humans the "very likely" agents of global warming, analysts say a new window may have opened for American scientists to practice some much-needed international diplomacy. (Newsday)

January 17, 2007
Why Termite Guts Could Bring Better Biofuels. Scientists are sequencing the genomes of entire microbial communities in the hope of uncovering new genes and organisms that can create fuel, mine metals, or clean up superfund sites. (Technology Review)

January 4, 2007
DNA Detective Work Reveals Paper-eating Bacteria That 'Glide'. The eco-friendly fuel ethanol is usually made from grain, but the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) would like to find other renewable materials that will be cost-effective alternatives, such as paper pulp, sawdust, straw and grain hulls. (Science Daily)

November 15, 2006
Neanderthal DNA Comes to Life. Two groups of researchers have done what many thought impossible: They have sequenced more than 1 million bases of nuclear DNA from a Neandertal fossil. (ScienceNOW Daily News)
Also featured on NPR's Science Friday and local (KTVU) news.

September 15, 2006
Scientists turn new leaf, crack cottonwood DNA. For the first time, scientists have decrypted the DNA for a tree — a black cottonwood on the banks of a Pacific Northwest salmon river — and discovered a genetic richness useful for squeezing more woody growth out of all trees, and possibly more gallons of fuel for cars and trucks. (Oakland Tribune)

Gene secrets of the tree revealed: The first tree to have its full DNA code unravelled is a poplar. The genome of the black cottonwood (Populus trichocarpa) was sequenced in a four-year international project led by US institutions. (BBC News)

September 14, 2006
One Step Closer to Ethanol Mass Production. Today is an important milestone in the drive to produce more alternative fuels. The journal "Science" is publishing the first-ever genome of a tree, the poplar tree. And a Bay Area lab has helped in this critical step toward figuring out how to replace gasoline. (KGO TV )

September 13, 2006
Studying Plants for Alternative Fuel Sources. In a quiet corner of Walnut Creek, scientists have the drive to discover a new way to fuel our cars. There's a lot of political will behind finding alternatives to oil, and there's scientific will to match... (KGO TV)

August 31, 2006
One million oak trees dead, but new hope for a cure. The fight to save California's emblematic oaks from disease is gaining momentum as scientists decipher the genetic code of the microbe responsible for sudden oak death. (San Jose Mercury News)

August 3, 2006
Bush pumps millions into biofuels: Lawrence Livermore, Berkeley labs in the running for research funds. Bush administration officials said Wednesday that they will plunge $250 million into a five-year hunt for the ideal germs and plants for producing biofuels as replacement for oil. (Tri-Valley Herald)

July 7, 2006
In New Roadmap, DOE Says Its Genomics: GTL Program Will Help Develop Cellulose-Based Ethanol Products. The US Department of Energy's Genomics: GTL program will play a role in a new DOE program to develop cellulose-based ethanol, the DOE said today. (GenomeWeb Daily News)

June 29, 2006
GENcast Interview with JGI's Paul Richardson. Dr. Paul Richardson, from the U.S. Department of Energy's Joint Genome Institute, talks with GEN's Editor-in-Chief John Sterling about large-scale genome sequencing. (Genetic Engineering News)

June 26, 2006
Harvest of ethanol may supply new fuel crop. Poplar trees and switch grass are on track to become important weapons in national security defense, and a Walnut Creek lab is speeding them on their way. (Contra Costa Times)

February 20, 2006
Mass Sequencing Effort Tackles Termite Guts. A facility built to do some of the heavy-duty processing for the human genome initiative is now cracking into the genomes of microorganisms; not as individuals, but en masse. (News@Nature)

February 18, 2006
Researchers look to termites in bid to find biofuels for cars. As oil companies scour the globe for new drilling spots, microbiologists are looking for the keys to an energy revolution — inside termites from the jungles of Costa Rica. (Inside Bay Area)

February 12, 2006
Using Bugs to Gin Up Ethanol. The key to kicking what President Bush calls the nation's oil addiction could very well lie in termite guts, canvas-eating jungle bugs and other microbes genetically engineered to spew enzymes that turn waste into fuel. (Miami Herald)

September 7, 2005
Bug Juice. Could termite guts hold the key to the world's energy problems? Don't laugh. (East Bay Express)

June 2, 2005
Cave Bear DNA Laid Bare . The degraded DNA of ancient cave bears has been sequenced, despite the fact that many considered the genetic information unrecoverable. (News@Nature.com)
More articles and local news clips about cave bear sequencing

March 22, 2005
Seventh grade science lessons are taken in real-world strides. Transgenic mice, a mysterious green "poison" and an 8-foot-long double helix attracted dozens of young scientists to "All About DNA Day," an intergenerational, multilab celebration of all things molecular. (Contra Costa Times)

Januray 17, 2005
Bright Idea: Los Alamos Lab Caps Gene Mapping Work. Los Alamos National Laboratory has completed its contribution to a toolbox to help fight human genetic diseases. Last month about 150 lab scientists capped off more than a decade of work mapping human chromosome 16 by publishing a paper in the journal Nature.

October 30, 2004
Junking DNA. Dr. Edward Rubin, the director of the U.S. Department of Energy's Joint Genome Institute at Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory at the University of California, designed an experiment to test whether some DNA in a mouse is essential or excess. (Quirks and Quarks, CBC Radio One)

October 22, 2004
Complete Human Genome Sequence Unveiled. Talk of the Nation Science Friday with guests Eddy Rubin (Director, JGI), Dale Sandler (National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences), Francis Collins (National Human Genome Research Institute), and Evan Eichler (University of Washington). (NPR)

October 21, 2004
Mice still thrive after loss of 'junk DNA'. It’s called the book of life — but mice, and perhaps humans, can still thrive even when chapters are missing, scientists say. (Reuters via MSNBC)

October 20, 2004
Fish Tales Solve Genetic Puzzles. A species of puffer fish has helped scientists identify 900 human genes that went previously unnoticed. (Wired)

September 15, 2004
Human genome hits halfway mark. Four years after publishing a draft of the human genetic sequence, researchers have hit the halfway mark in producing the "gold standard" version. (BBC News)

August 30 , 2004
Figuring out the very nature of nature: UC lab heads groundbreaking genome work. A single group of obscure green mosses . . . can withstand the kind of total desiccation that would kill virtually all other plants . . . -- and that quality has earned them a place in a new genome-sequencing effort at the Joint Genome Institute, a UC Berkeley facility in Walnut Creek sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy. (San Francisco Chronicle)

June 10, 2004
Oak Death's Genes Decoded : Unraveling is key step in finding way to stop spread of pathogen. Scientists have figured out the complete genetic code of a virulent pathogen that has killed tens of thousands of California native oaks, an important step that scientists said will help them find ways to prevent or stop rampant spread of the disease. (San Francisco Chronicle) More articles and videos from local news stations...

April 1, 2004
Genetic treasure-trove laid open: Bay Area researchers involved in thousands of finds from studies launched nearly 20 years ago. Marking a transition from the nuclear age to the age of biology, scientists have laid open an astonishingly rich chapter in the genetic recipe book for humans. (Oakland Tribune)

New chromosome mapping completed. Scientists have completed the final analysis of two more human chromosomes, packed with genetic information about cancer, diabetes and other diseases, in a major step towards developing personalised antidotes. (Reuters)

February 2, 2004
Pink Slime Gives Clues to the Past. For the first time, scientists have grabbed a piece of the natural world and decoded the genetic recipe of every living being in it. Their sample was a pink slime found deep inside a Northern California mountain of fool's gold, where six microorganisms thrive in hot, moist, pitch darkness, floating on toxic streams of acid and devouring iron. (Oakland Tribune)

February 2, 2004
Scientists Crack Genetic Code of Highly Toxic Pink Cave Slime. Using technology developed to decode the human genome, researchers at UC Berkeley have cracked the genetic instructions for a tribe of bacteria that thrives within an abandoned Shasta County mine, one of the most toxic waste sites in America. (San Francisco Chronicle)