From Field-to-Lab and Lab-to-Field: How Microbes Evolve, Form Partnerships and Work Together - Researchers in the Institute for Systems Biology’s Baliga Lab examined model organisms from two classes of microbes whose interaction converts over a gigaton of carbon to methane each year and found that gene mutations selected for over a relatively short timeframe in the two microbes –Desulfovibrio vulgaris (Dv)… News Article →
Huang Explores How Bacteria Store Carbon at 2024 BioEPIC Research SLAM - Congratulations to Joshua Jiaqi Huang, a UC Berkeley graduate student researcher in Biosciences senior faculty scientist Adam Arkin’s group, who represented ENIGMA and Biosciences at the 2024 BioEPIC Research SLAM. News Article →
fast.genomics: A Fast Comparative Genome Browser for Diverse Bacteria and Archaea - ENIGMA researchers have developed fast.genomics, a new tool which allows users to search for a protein and identify other proteins that share a common ancestor or are located in similar genomic regions. News Article →
Jinwoo Im is ENIGMA’s Third BioEPIC Virtual Research Slam Presenter - With anticipated occupancy early 2025, Berkeley Lab’s newest building Biological and Environmental Program Integration Center (BioEPIC), is located in the beautiful Berkeley hills overlooking San Francisco Bay and the Golden Gate Bridge. As part of Berkeley Lab’s Earth Month celebrations, a Research SLAM was hosted by Biosciences (BSA)… News Article →
Multi-disciplinary research develops a deeper understanding of subsurface microbiology - ENIGMA is organized into three aims that reflect the different research scales (i.e., field level to molecular level) required to build a comprehensive picture of subsurface microbiology at the Oak Ridge Reservation (ORR): Subsurface Observatory, Environmental Atlas, and Environmental Simulations. Several key research initiatives, described in this cross-aim… News Article →
Nuclear Waste Sites Yield Microbial Ecosystem Insights - In a flagship seven-year study, published this January in the journal Nature Microbiology, ENIGMA researchers explored how environmental stresses influence the composition and structure of microbial communities in the groundwater of the Oak Ridge Reservation (ORR), a former nuclear waste disposal site. News Article →
Rainfall Impacts Hydrology Of Test Site More Than Field Sampling - ENIGMA researchers measured physical and geochemical effects of cone penetrometer testing on nearby shallow groundwater wells. They found that the effects of cone penetration on water level and conductivity were minimal. News Article →
New Platform Explores Ecological Drivers of Change in Microbial Communities - ENIGMA researchers assess mechanisms for microbial taxa and community dynamics using process models. News Article →
Disentangling Direct and Indirect Relationships in Association Networks - New iDIRECT framework could help scientists better understand biological systems by disentangling direct from indirect relationships in association networks. News Article →
Bacterial community composition impacts the transformation of carbon in soils - Microorganisms have evolved various life-history strategies to survive fluctuating resource conditions in soils. However, it remains elusive how the life-history strategies of microorganisms influence their processing of organic carbon, which may affect microbial interactions and carbon cycling in soils. Here, ENIGMA researchers characterized the genomic traits, exometabolite profiles,… News Article →
Two model phages characterized by new CRISPR based technology extensible to diverse phages - ENIGMA researchers demonstrated for the first time that they can, on a genome-wide scale, identify phage genes that are essential (or not) to infecting bacteria, and then replace non-essential DNA with distinctive barcode tags. Their method could unlock potent biotechnology applications. News Article →
Novel Protocol Leverages Automatic Liquid Transfer to Prepare Hundreds of Microbial Cell Cultures for Proteomic Analysis - ENIGMA researchers detailed a step-by-step protocol that consists of cell lysis in alkaline chemical buffer (NaOH/SDS) followed by protein precipitation with high-ionic strength acetone in 96-well format. This protocol, combined with previously established automated protein quantification and protein normalization protocols, provides a rapid, cost-effective method to prepare LC-MS… News Article →