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Training Your Robot the PaR-PaR Way

By Guest PostOctober 31, 2012Scienceautomation, berkeley lab, biological design, challenge, changhao bi, cloning, compiler, database, dna molecules, dynamic, experimental data, experimental error, gregory linshiz, j5, jay keasling, language, nathan hillson, new trick, nina stawski, non repetitive, par par, program, programming, programming tool, rate, research environment, robot, robot platform, robot programming, robotic protocol, sean poust, software program, syntax, virtual object

Berkeley Lab and JBEI Researchers Develop a Biology-Friendly Robot Programming Language

Teaching a robot a new trick is a challenge. You can’t reward it with treats and it doesn’t respond to approval or disappointment in your voice. For researchers in the biological sciences, however, the future training of robots has been made much easier thanks to a new program called “PaR-PaR.”

Nathan Hillson, a biochemist at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)’s Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI), led the development of PaR-PaR, which stands for Programming a Robot. PaR-PaR is a simple high-level, biology-friendly, robot-programming language that allows researchers to make better use of liquid-handling robots and thereby make possible experiments that otherwise might not have been considered. (more…)

Latest JBEI Startup to Speed Up Biotech Industry

By Guest PostOctober 3, 2012Scienceautocad, berkeley lab, biofuels, biology, chemicals, cutting edge, design, DNA, dna manipulation, eduardo abeliuk, electrical engineering, expressing, inertia, iso27001, j5 software, jbei, majed abolfazli, medicine, metabolic pathway, mike fero, modern cloning, molecular biology, nathan hillson, organism, pharmchem, protocol, qb3, san francisco, Science, sequencing, splicing, stanford university, teselagen

TeselaGen’s DNA construction technology makes genetic engineering cheaper and faster.

Sequencing, splicing and expressing DNA may seem to be the quintessence of cutting-edge science—indeed DNA manipulation has revolutionized fields such as biofuels, chemicals and medicine. But in fact, the actual process can still be tedious and labor-intensive, something Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) scientist Nathan Hillson learned the hard way.

After struggling for two days to design a protocol to put together a genetic circuit with 10 pieces of DNA—using a spreadsheet as his primary tool—he was dismayed to discover that an outside company could have done the whole thing, including parts and labor, for lower cost than him ordering the oligonucleotides himself. “I learned two things: one, I never wanted to go through that process again, and two, it’s extremely important to do the cost-effectiveness calculation,” said Hillson, a biochemist who also directs the synthetic biology program at the Berkeley Lab-led Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI). “So that was the genesis of the j5 software. This is the perfect thing to teach a computer to do.” (more…)

From Soil Microbe to Super-Efficient Biofuel Factory?

By Guest PostMay 5, 2012Environment, Scienceadvanced biofuel, arpa e program, berkeley lab, bioelectrochemical reactor, biofuel, bioplastic, chris chang, CO2, diesel fuel, electrode, electrofuel, energy source, harry beller, hydrocarbon, hydrogen, ketones, microbe, nathan hillson, organic compound, ralstonia eutropha, soil bacterium, steve singer, swapnil chhabra, team electrofuel, Technology

Berkeley Lab-led team explores a way to create biofuels, minus the photosynthesis

Is there a new path to biofuels hiding in a handful of dirt? Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) biologist Steve Singer leads a group that wants to find out. They’re exploring whether a common soil bacterium can be engineered to produce liquid transportation fuels much more efficiently than the ways in which advanced biofuels are made today.

The scientists are working with a bacterium called Ralstonia eutropha. It naturally uses hydrogen as an energy source to convert CO₂ into various organic compounds. (more…)

Tag Archives: nathan hillson

Training Your Robot the PaR-PaR Way

Latest JBEI Startup to Speed Up Biotech Industry

From Soil Microbe to Super-Efficient Biofuel Factory?