MICROBIAL GENOME

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science supports innovative high-impact and peer-reviewed science. Its missions include a range of such difficult challenges as environmental-waste cleanup, energy production, carbon sequestration, and biotechnology. To aid in carrying out its missions, DOE initiated the Microbial Genome Program (MGP) in late 1994 as a spinoff of its Human Genome Program. Scientists expect to find a vast repertoire of useful functions in the microbial world that could be applied to solving challenges in the human world... The MGP and the closely linked Genomics: GTL program is generating novel insights into both the biological underpinnings of climate change and the role of microbes in the overall processing of metals, carbon, radionuclides, and nitrogen. Scientists are only beginning to appreciate the power of microbial sequencing for generating new and testable hypotheses and advancing science... Researchers have only scratched the surface of microbial..