Author: Brittany Cramer

In 2015, all member states of the United Nations pledged to pursue the 17 Sustainable Development Goals set forth by the UN General Assembly in its 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

Scientists at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory have a powerful new tool in the quest to produce better plants for biofuels, bioproducts and agriculture.

Creating biofuels and other products from plant material is a complex process. Among other things, we need chemicals to break down plant cells.

An NC State researcher has developed a new way to get CRISPR/Cas9 into plant cells without inserting foreign DNA. This allows for precise genetic deletions or replacements, without inserting foreign DNA. Therefore, the end product is not a genetically modified organism, or GMO.

A collaboration between the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and three other national laboratories has yielded new insight into the ability of bacteria to break down the hardy part of a plant known as lignin.

Meet Tatenda and Wellington Muchero. Wellington is a researcher in biosciences at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. His daughter, Tatenda, had the opportunity to ask him questions about what he does at the lab.

Scientists at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory have developed a new method to peer deep into the nanostructure of biomaterials without damaging the sample. This novel technique can confirm structural features in starch, a carbohydrate important in biofuel production.

After several years in the private sector exploring the unknown origins of neurodegenerative brain disorders such as Alzheimer’s, Chris Ellis thinks one of the keys to solving the mystery is at Oak Ridge National Laboratory: the world’s most powerful supercomputer. Ellis, a computational microbiologist in the Biosciences Division, is hoping to prove a theory that’s […]

ORISE | SULI Participant Interview with Emilie Sidelinger

The black cottonwood tree, or Populus trichocarpa (poplar), serves as a model organism for scientists studying the structure, growth, development, and genetics of plants. Poplar was the first tree genome scientists sequenced, and now they use it to study topics such as bioenergy, drought tolerance, and wood formation.

Scientists at the US Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory have demonstrated a method to insert genes into a variety of microorganisms that previously would not accept foreign DNA, with the goal of creating custom microbes to break down plants for bioenergy.

The poplar (Populus trichocarpa) was the first tree ever to have its genome sequenced. Now you can propagate the poplar yourself, find out how in a few easy steps.