Berkeley Lab researchers have developed PCR-free techniques for identifying the most active microbial populations in samples based on the PhyloChip, the Lab’s award-winning, high-density DNA microarray. These new techniques will be used in a wide variety of applications including the development of advanced biofuels.

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.

Berkeley Lab scientists delivered nearly 100 presentations at the American Chemical Society’s Fall 2010 national meeting in Boston, August 22-26, 2010. This post features reports on two unique approaches to environmental studies, one employing medical imaging technologies such as PET and SPECT, the other employing synchrotron light from Berkeley Lab’s Advanced Light Source.

Berkeley Lab scientists delivered nearly 100 presentations at the American Chemical Society’s Fall 2010 national meeting in Boston, August 22-26, 2010. Major areas of emphasis included chemistry for medical applications. Here are some highlights.

A Berkeley Lab bioremediation expert says extreme caution must be used in cleaning up the fragile Gulf Coast ecosystem in the aftermath of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Oil is a biological product that can be degraded by microbes, whereas detergents used to clean up oil contaminated sites can make a bad situation even worse.

In revisiting a chemical reaction that’s been in the literature for several decades and adding a new wrinkle of their own, researchers with Berkeley Lab and UC Berkeley have discovered a mild and relatively inexpensive procedure for removing oxygen from biomass. This procedure, if it can be effectively industrialized, could allow many of today’s petrochemical products, including plastics, to instead be made from biomass.