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UC Berkeley scientists have sequenced nearly all the genes in an underground community of microbes at a contaminated uranium mill site in Rifle, Colo. Their work provides information that could help scientists better manipulate microbes that remediate heavy-metal contamination, or those that take up and store carbon from the atmosphere.
Tag: microbes
Eye proteins have germ-killing power, could lead to new antimicrobial drugs, study finds
September 24, 2012:
When it comes to germ-busting power, the eyes have it, according to a UC Berkeley discovery that could lead to new, inexpensive antimicrobial drugs. Researchers found that small fragments of keratin protein in the eye play a key role in warding off pathogens.
Hot springs microbe yields record-breaking, heat-tolerant enzyme
July 5, 2011:
Scientists looking for unusual cellulose-digesting enzymes, called cellulases, have found one that works at a higher temperature, 109 degrees Celsius, than any others found to date. The cellulase comes from an Archaea found in a Nevada hot spring.
Turning bacteria into butanol biofuel factories
March 1, 2011:
While ethanol is today’s major biofuel, researchers aim to produce fuels more like gasoline. Butanol is the primary candidate, now produced primarily by Clostridium bacteria. UC Berkeley chemist Michelle Chang has transplanted the enzyme pathway from Clostridium into E. coli and gotten the bacteria to churn out 10 times more n-butanol than competing microbes, close to the level needed for industrial scale production.
Cow rumen yields enzyme bonanza
January 28, 2011:
Sequencing of microbes in the rumen of the cow has turned up a treasure trove of new enzymes that degrade tough plant material, providing new avenues for research to boost biofuel production from plants. The research, funded by the Energy Biosciences Institute, involves UC Berkeley chemical engineer Doug Clark and colleagues at LBNL and the Joint Genome Institue.
Jillian Banfield to receive Franklin Medal, L’Oreal-UNESCO award
November 9, 2010:
Jillian Banfield, a biogeochemist and geomicrobiologist, will receive two prestigious awards for her groundbreaking work on how microbes alter rocks and interact with the natural world.
Weird, ultra-small microbes turn up in acidic mine drainage
May 3, 2010:
For nearly a decade, Jillian Banfield and her UC Berkeley colleagues have been studying the microbe community that lives in one of the most acidic environments on Earth: the drainage from a former copper mine in Northern California. One group of these microbes seems to be smaller, and weirder, than any other known, free-living organism.
