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Scientist Spotlight: Hamilton O. Smith and Clyde A. Hutchison III
Two of the superstars of science at the helm of the effort to make a synthetic cell (a cell with a completely man-made set of genetic instructions) are Hamilton Smith and Clyde Hutchison, or Ham and Clyde as they are affectionately known to colleagues. Since 2003 when they started working together here at JCVI one rarely hears about one without the other – always together and cracking jokes amidst discussing the complexities that define their ultimate quest: To understand, “What is...
Combining Antibiotics, Researchers Deliver One-Two Punch against Ubiquitous Bacterium
By combining two well-established antibiotics for the first time, a scientific team led by Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine and Louis Stokes Cleveland VA Medical Center has delivered a “double whammy” against the pervasive Pseudomonas aeruginosa, a potentially deadly form of bacteria that is a major source of hospital-based infections. In a recent Journal of Infectious Diseases study, investigators showed using two antibiotic drugs to...
Variants in non-coding DNA contribute to inherited autism risk
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA - SAN DIEGO In recent years, researchers have firmly established that gene mutations appearing for the first time, called de novo mutations, contribute to approximately one-third of cases of autism spectrum disorder (ASD). In a new study, an international team led by scientists at University of California San Diego School of Medicine have identified a culprit that may explain some of the remaining risk: rare inherited variants in regions of non-coding DNA. The...
Scientists identify a new kind of human brain cell
One of the most intriguing questions about the human brain is also one of the most difficult for neuroscientists to answer: What sets our brains apart from those of other animals? “We really don’t understand what makes the human brain special,” said Ed Lein, Ph.D., Investigator at the Allen Institute for Brain Science. “Studying the differences at the level of cells and circuits is a good place to start, and now we have new tools to do just that.” A...
2nd Minimal Cell Workshop
View complete playlist for the workshop on YouTube. Day 1 — September 22, 2022 Time PDT Video Title Presenter Organization PI 5:00 - 5:15 Welcome and introduction John Glass 5:15 - 5:30 Cell-free expression system derived from Syn3A cells Andrei Sakai Radboud University Wilhelm Huck...
Genomics: massively parallel sequencing.
Signature Infiltration and Maintenance on Plasmid Elements creating a Forensic Microbial System (SIMPLE-FMS)
J. Craig Venter Institute (JCVI) is developing a unique microbial barcode (“signature”) that can be easily be deployed in complex environments to create unique microbial signatures for environmental forensics operations. The barcoded signature will be 1) maintained for specific amounts of time in a complex microbial community (microbiome) with minimal disturbance to the native environment; 2) transferable to a diverse array of objects; and 3) contained through control...
Optimizing Phagehunting Methods to Isolate and Amplify Bacteriophages
Shriya Singh, Enrique Assad-Garcia, Nacyra Assad-Garcia, Lauren Oldfield, Sanjay Vashee, and Derrick E. Fouts J. Craig Venter Institute, Rockville, MD 20872 There are an estimated 1031 bacteriophages (phage), viruses that infect bacteria, in the biosphere, thus comprising a significant portion of the biosphere on Earth. Of these, a mere 10,733 phages have been isolated and 2,061 phages have sequenced, complete genomes, with even fewer, only 1,073,...