Researchers with the Joint BioEnergy Institute have developed a microbe that can produce an advanced biofuel fuel directly from biomass. Deploying the tools of synthetic biology, the JBEI researchers engineered a strain of E. coli bacteria to produce biodiesel and other important chemicals derived from fatty acids. JBEI is a DOE Bioenergy Research center led by Berkeley Lab.

Berkeley Lab cosmologists were part of an international team that has extended the relationship between the x-ray luminosity and the mass of galaxy clusters as measured by gravitational lensing, improving the reliability of mass measurements of much older, more distant, and smaller galactic structures. These refined measurements will benefit both the understanding of dark matter and the nature of dark energy as well.

For the first time, the widely used molecular synthesis technique known as click chemistry has been safely applied to a living organism. A team of Berkeley Lab and UC Berkeley researchers has developed a unique copper-free version of click chemistry to create biomolecular probes for in vivo studies of live mice.

Berkeley Lab scientists Christian Bauer, Delia Milliron, Feng Wang and Feng Yuan were among the 69 recipients from across the nation who will divide up to $85 million in five-year research grants under the U.S. Department of Energy’s new Early Career Research Program.