Search
Scientist Spotlight: Greg Wanger
Greg Wanger was 3.7 km below the Earth’s surface, trapped not only underground but also in a country distant from his native lands of Canada and Liechtenstein. He looked around him. It was very hot and smelled like rotten eggs. As many people do during their graduate careers, Greg pondered the questions: “What was I thinking when I agreed to this project? Does my advisor know what he’s doing? Am I claustrophobic, or just paranoid about being claustrophobic?” JCVI’s own...
Days of Discovery: Plymouth, Sea Urchin Cell Division and More Plankton
After a few days of fairly rough weather and winds up to 50 knots we finally spotted land and made our way to Plymouth. With our social interactions having been restricted to a pod of pilot whales and a few tankers passing through the night, we were excited to see a welcoming committee, headed by Dr. Jack Gilbert and Dave Robins from Plymouth Marine Laboratory (PML), waiting on the dock in Sutton Harbour. We were also excited to meet up with our colleague from JCVI, Dr. Chris Dupont, who...
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...
Summer 2016 Intern Program
Interns in both Rockville, MD and La Jolla, CA participated in our summer 2016 internship program at the J. Craig Venter Institute (JCVI). A total of 19 interns were hired for the summer 2016 program, selected from 578 applicants. Of the 19 interns, six interns were part of the Genomic Scholar Program (GSP) that is a transition program focusing on the leap from a community college to a four-year college using a combination of activities including undergraduate research experience with...
Towards a comprehensive structural variation map of an individual human genome.
Several genomes have now been sequenced, with millions of genetic variants annotated. While significant progress has been made in mapping single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and small (
TIGR President Wins ASM's Promega Biotechnology Research Award
June 6, 2005 TIGR President and Director Claire M. Fraser, Ph.D., has been awarded the 2005 Promega Biotechnology Research Award at the annual meeting of the American Society for Microbiology (ASM), the nation's largest life sciences society. The award honors Fraser for her "outstanding contributions to the application of biotechnology through fundamental microbiological research and development." In accepting the award Monday, Fraser delivered a lecture at the ASM's 105th General...