An essential relationship among leading genes and proteins that control the health of the skin has been revealed by a multinational research team. The protein p63 is the “master regulator” for skin’s uppermost layers, the epidermis. It does much of its work by directly controlling the chromatin-remodeling protein Satb1, discovered at Berkeley Lab over a decade ago and already known for critical roles in the immune system and aggressive breast cancer.

Berkeley Lab has opened the Advanced Biofuels Process Demonstration Unit (ABPDU), a state-of-the art facility, designed to help expedite the commercialization of advanced next-generation biofuels by providing industry-scale test beds for discoveries made in the laboratory.

One year after the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and two decades after the Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska’s Prince William Sound, the scientific lesson is clear – microbes matter! Despite vast differences in the ecosystems and circumstances of these two worst oil spills in U.S. history, oil-degrading microorganisms played a significant role in reducing the overall environmental impact of both spills, a Berkley Lab scientist reports.

When people ask Greg Alushin what he did this summer, he could tell them he went on a yacht cruise with a Swedish countess on Lake Constance in Bavaria. But he actually did something even more exciting than that—Alushin was one of a select group of young researchers chosen to attend a week of lectures and lunches with Nobel laureates.

Berkeley Lab and German researchers have developed the world’s first three-dimensional plasmon rulers, capable of measuring nanometer-scale spatial changes in macromolecular systems. These 3D plasmon rulers could provide unprecedented details on such critical dynamic events in biology as the interaction of DNA with enzymes, the folding of proteins, the motion of peptides or the vibrations of cell membranes.

The Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI) will partner with the Kurchatov Institute in Moscow to evaluate unique ceramic membrane separators as an economic means of recovering advanced biofuels. The partnership is part of a joint energy action plan between the U.S. and Russia recently signed by Energy Secretary Steven Chu.

Researchers at the Joint BioEnergy Institute have created a library of microbial efflux pumps that reduce toxicity and boost production of biofuels in engineered strains of microbes. This library and the bioprospecting strategy behind it should serve as valuable new tools for the development of advanced biofuels and other areas of biotechnology as well.

JBEI and Berkelety Lab researchers have demonstrated a new technique for the metabolic engineering of microbes that speeds up and improves the identification and quantification of proteins within a cell or organism. The new technique is called “targeted proteomics.”

Systems biology holds promise for advances in such important areas as pharmaceuticals, environmental remediation and sustainable energy, but, as an essay by two leading authorities from Berkeley Lab explain, its most profound impact is that it might one day provide an answer to the central question: What is life?

Berkeley Lab scientistst co-authored a report that presents seven grand challenges for addressing the social, economic and environmental issues that must be confronted before advanced biofuels can replace gasoline on a widescale basis. The report was funded by the Energy Biosciences Institute.