Discovery and Innovation for Biological and Climate Science at the Department of Energy (2016)
Featuring Dr. Sharlene Weatherwax, Associate Director of Science for Biological and Environmental Research (BER), U.S. Department of Energy
Recent program and scientific highlights and future strategic directions will be presented from the Department of Energy’s Office of Biological and Environmental Research (BER). BER’s mission is to support fundamental research and scientific user facilities to achieve a predictive understanding of complex biological, climatic, and environmental systems for a secure and sustainable energy future. The program seeks to understand the biological, biogeochemical, and physical principles needed to predict a continuum of processes occurring at the molecular and genomics-controlled smallest scales to environmental and Earth system change at the largest scales. Starting with the genetic potential encoded by organisms’ genomes, BER research seeks to define the principles that guide the translation of the genetic code into functional proteins and the metabolic and regulatory networks underlying the systems biology of plants and microbes as they respond to and modify their environments. This predictive understanding can enable more confident redesign of microbes and plants for sustainable biofuels production, improved carbon storage, and controlled biological transformation of materials such as nutrients and contaminants in the environment. BER research also advances understanding of how the Earth’s dynamic, physical, and biogeochemical systems (the atmosphere, land, oceans, sea ice, and subsurface) interact and cause future climate and environmental change to provide information that will inform plans for future energy and resource needs.
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