Podcast · Tech & Science

Genome Insider

Stories where genes and genomes are key to solving energy and environmental challenges. Hear diverse voices in science talk about their JGI-supported research to better understand — and harness — the superpowers encoded in plants, fungi, microalgae, environmental viruses, and bacteria to contribute

New episodes: Monthly
Typical length: 21 min
Latest: 11 Aug 2026
Language: English

Latest episode

11 Aug 2026 · 24 min

A Spectrum of Sorghum

This year, the JGI helped a collaborative team produce a pangenome for Sorghum bicolor — a collection of many, many sorghum genome sequences. Lined up and analyzed consistently, these data let researchers compare and learn from a range of different versions of this plant. This opens the door to growing sorghum — and other crops — to more effectively produce biofuels and bioproducts. In the episode, Nadia Shakoor (Donald Danforth Plant Science Center) walks us through growing sorghum fro...

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Earlier episodes 29 most recent

1 Jul 2026 · 38 min
The Mobilome in the Mire
For years, researchers have known that many datasets miss a key part of microbial genomes: the mobile genetic elements, or MGEs, that can move between organisms. But now, deep sequencing and new analysis methods are bringing this mobilome into light, and opening up new options for engineering these microbes in the future. Join Sarah Bagby (Case Western Reserve University) and Simon Roux (JGI) as they talk about their recent work on a time series from Sweden’s Stordalen Mire. Nature Mi...
15 Apr 2025 · 21 min
SIPs with Standards
Stable Isotope Probing (SIP) is a powerful technique for studying microbial communities. These experiments can show which microbes are handling specific nutrients, or what they're doing with those nutrients, and even how quickly. But there's a catch: SIP labwork and analysis can be very demanding. The JGI offers SIP analysis to make these experiments accessible to more researchers. Ultimately, the goal is to generate SIP data that can be useful to multiple teams and analyses. This episo...
S5 · E5 · 11 Oct 2024 · 27 min
Adopt-A-Genome
In this episode, undergraduates adopt genomes that the JGI sequenced, but never published in the literature. These students analyze the genomes, write reports, and publish first-author papers, making the data available for future research. Hear from Rekha Seshadri (JGI) and Matt Escobar (California State San Marcos) about how the Adopt-A-Genome project got started. Plus, Kalyani Maitra (California State Fresno) and two students, Angela and Mark Soghomonian share what it was like to take...
S5 · E4 · 1 Aug 2024 · 25 min
Gotta Catch 'Em Gall
Kasey Markel and Patrick Shih (UC Berkeley and the Joint BioEnergy Institute) are looking for new ways to engineer plants. So they’ve looked into wasps that program oak trees to grow structures called galls. In this episode, hear from Kasey and Patrick about how this project unfolded, and how they worked with the JGI's metabolomics program to find out more about these weird little pods. Links from this episode: Submit your own proposal to work with the JGIJoin us at the 2024 JGI User Meetin...
S5 · E3 · 28 Jun 2024 · 21 min
A Redesign for Yeast’s Genome, Chromosome by Chromosome - Jef Boeke, Weimin Zhang & Leslie Mitchell
To engineer yeast to do more, and understand genomes in general, Jef Boeke, Weimin Zhang (NYU Langone Health) and Leslie Mitchell (Neochromosome) have worked to replace yeast’s native chromosomes with synthetic versions. This project has turned out to be an international collaboration, with some artistic endeavors along the way. Eventually, the goal is to create an entirely human-generated yeast genome. Links from this episode: Submit your own proposal to work with the JGIJoin us at the 20...
S5 · E2 · 13 Jun 2024 · 27 min
Forest Fungi, Seagrass, and a New View of Symbiosis
Three stories of JGI-supported research, connected to nutrient cycles. Francis Martin and Lucas Auer discuss their work on communities of forest floor fungi. Allison Joy looks into seagrass meadows' carbon sequestration with insights from Adam Healey and Xiao Ma. And Karen Serrano and Benjamin Cole explain their research on the symbiotic relationship between mycorrhizal fungi and plant roots. Links from this episode: Submit your own proposal to work with the JGIJoin us at the 2024 JGI U...
S5 · E1 · 30 May 2024 · 23 min
What Happens To a Rainforest When You Dial Up Drought? - Linnea Honeker and Malak Tfaily
Rainforests store a big fraction of all the carbon on Earth, and soil microbes play a key role in pulling that carbon out of the atmosphere. This episode, researchers take a look at what happens to that storage when a rainforest hits a drought. Tag along with their experiments in a fully enclosed, human-made ecosystem: Biosphere 2. Links from this episode: Submit your own proposal to work with the JGIJoin us at the 2024 JGI User MeetingFICUS program Find all episode transcripts on our ...
S4 · E8 · 21 Dec 2023 · 25 min
The Megadata of Lake Mendota - Part 3: Boating Out to David Buoy
This is the third and final episode of our series on a giant metagenome assembly from Wisconsin’s Lake Mendota. In the last two episodes, we’ve covered the specialized software and supercomputers behind this project. But every part of this project depends on lakewater samples — so this episode is a look at how researchers get these specialized snapshots of a freshwater ecosystem. Links from this episode: Submit your own proposal to work with the JGIFind all episode transcripts on our websiteR...
S4 · E7 · 7 Dec 2023 · 22 min
The Megadata of Lake Mendota - Part 2: Souped Up Computing
This series is the story of a giant metagenome assembly from Wisconsin’s Lake Mendota. In this episode: a look at the supercomputing that stitches together large datasets with the assembler program MetaHipMer2. Oak Ridge National Lab is home to two supercomputers — Summit and Frontier — that process terabytes of data with MetaHipMer2. And the National Energy Research Scientific Computing (NERSC) has another supercomputer, Perlmutter that works at large scale. But nearby the JGI, a cluster cal...
S4 · E6 · 21 Nov 2023 · 26 min
The Megadata of Lake Mendota - Part 1: Many, Many Mers
Lake Mendota sits right next to the University of Wisconsin, Madison. And Trina McMahon's lab has been sampling the microbes of that lake for over 20 years, to understand how the freshwater ecosystem works. So a few years ago, when they set out to analyze 500 metagenomes, it was the biggest project the JGI had ever put together. The next 3 episodes are the story behind that giant assembly from Lake Mendota. In this episode: the software evolution that made metagenome assemblies ...
S4 · E5 · 9 Nov 2023 · 22 min
Experimenting with EcoFABs for Student Labs - Jill Bouchard & Ying Wang
To set up flexible, repeatable experiments on plants and microbes, Trent Northen’s group at Berkeley Lab created a fabricated ecosystem – an EcoFAB. These small plastic growth chambers let researchers around the world compare their work consistently. And EcoFABs also work well in the classroom. This episode, we visit Los Medanos College to see EcoFABs in action in Jill Bouchard’s BIO 21 lab course. Links from this episode: Submit your own proposal to work with the JGIFind out more about...
S4 · 19 Oct 2023 · 8 min
JGIota: A Surprise for Chloroflexota — The First Flagella!
To understand how organisms adapt to extreme environments, Marike Palmer and Brian Hedlund study organisms living in hot springs. Hear how their recent work revealed more about the history of the Chloroflexota phylum and a new way of moving: a tail-like flagella. Submit your own proposal to work with the JGIJoin us at the 2023 JGI User MeetingLinks from this episode: Find all episode transcripts on our websitePublication: Palmer, M, et al.Thermophilic Dehalococcoidia with unusual traits...
20 Sep 2023 · 6 min
JGIota: A Tool to Find the Nomadic Genes that Help Microbes Adapt - geNomad
A quick snippet on Antonio Camargo and Simon Roux, a few of the JGI researchers behind software that finds plasmids and viruses within microbial genomes. As mobile genetic elements like viruses spread their DNA, they can affect how microbes cycle nutrients and adapt to climate change. Find all episode transcripts on our websitePublication: Camargo, A.P., et al. “Identification of mobile genetic elements with geNomad,” Nature Biotechnology. (2023). doi: 10.1038/s41587-023-01953-yScience Hig...
S4 · E4 · 29 Jun 2023 · 27 min
Methane Makers in Yosemite's Lakes - Mike Beman and Elisabet Perez Coronel
Meet researchers who have hiked, rafted and met local wildlife (a marmot!) as they’ve sampled the microbial communities living in the mountaintop lakes of the Sierra Nevada mountains. These lakes are isolated, but varied. They’re a great way to see how climate change affects freshwater ecosystems, and how those ecosystems work. Links from this episode: Submit your own proposal to work with the JGI http://jointgeno.me/proposals Join us at the 2023 JGI User Meeting http://jointg...
S4 · E3 · 22 Jun 2023 · 21 min
A Shrubbier Version of Rubber - Andrew Nelson and Colleen McMahan
Right now, our natural rubber comes from just one tree species: Hevea brasiliensis. It’s great at producing latex that becomes rubber, but it’s vulnerable to disease and climate shifts. So researchers are looking into a desert shrub that’s native to North America: guayule. This episode was made in collaboration with our friends at the HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology. Links from this episode: Submit your own proposal to work with the JGI : http://jointgeno.me/proposals &nb...
S4 · E2 · 15 Jun 2023 · 31 min
The Busy World of Deep Sea Eruptions - Anna-Louise Reysenbach and Emily St. John
The ocean depths are vast and dark. But there are hotspots on the ocean floor — underwater volcanoes and hydrothermal vents — where lively microbial communities thrive, and even support entire ecosystems. Hear from researchers Anna-Louise Reysenbach, Emily St. John, Gilberto Flores, and Peter Girguis about sampling these communities, and understanding how they’ve adapted to this extreme environment. Links from this episode: Submit your own proposal to work with the JGI: http://jointgen...
S4 · E1 · 8 Jun 2023 · 28 min
Crops as Tough as World Cup Turf - James Schnable and Guangchao Sun
In our warming world, we’ll need corn, sorghum and other crops to grow well in worse conditions: with more heat, less water and less fertilizer. Grasses do better in these conditions, so plant biologists James Schable, Guangchao Sun and Vladimir Torrres have looked into traits that could transfer from grasses into other crops. One grass they studied just happened to be the same species that covered World Cup pitches in 2022. Links from this episode: Submit your own proposal to work ...
S4 · 6 Jun 2023 · 3 min
Season 4 Trailer (and sneak peek!)
On June 8th, Genome Insider is back! We've got a batch of 4 new episodes where researchers discover the expertise encoded in our environment — in the genomes of plants, fungi, bacteria, archaea, algae, and environmental viruses — to power a more sustainable future. Stick around for a snippet of the next episode. Join us at our User Meeting: jointgeno.me/JGI2023 Find out how to become a JGI user here: jointgeno.me/proposals Our contact info: Twitter: @JGIEmail: jgi-comms at lbl dot go...
S3 · E11 · 30 Mar 2023 · 5 min
JGIota: A Biofuel Breakthrough in Anaerobic Fungi with Michelle O'Malley and Tom Lankiewicz
Michelle O'Malley and Tom Lankiewicz of UC-Santa Barbara discuss the importance of studying anaerobic fungi, as well as a recent discovery that turns scientific presumption on its head and opens up a new avenue to explore for efficient biofuel production. Find all episode transcripts on our websitePublication: Lankiewicz, T.S., Choudhary, H., Gao, Y. et al. Lignin deconstruction by anaerobic fungi. Nat Microbiol 8, 596–610 (2023). doi: 10.1038/s41564-023-01336-8
S3 · E10 · 2 Mar 2023 · 6 min
JGIota: Sequencing Shiitakes with David Hibbett
David Hibbett (Clark University) fills us in on the kind of decay that makes shiitake mushrooms special. This week, he 39 collaborators published a paper tracing how these mushrooms have evolved. Find all episode transcripts on our websitePublication: Sierra-Patev S et al. A global phylogenomic analysis of the shiitake genus Lentinula. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2023 Mar 7;120(10):e2214076120. doi: 10.1073/pnas.2214076120. The Lentinula genomes are publicly available on JGI’s MycoCosm ...
S3 · E9 · 16 Dec 2022 · 30 min
Work With the JGI! Tips for a Winning CSP Proposal
The JGI’s Community Science Program gives researchers access to all kinds of sequencing, ‘omics and bioinformatics capabilities — and it’s open to scientists at any career stage, anywhere in the world, for free. We accept new projects related to energy and the environment several times a year. A few proposal calls have deadlines coming up – in January, March, and later on in the spring. In this episode, hear proposal tips from Tanja Woyke, who runs user programs at the JGI, and project manage...
S3 · E8 · 17 Nov 2022 · 8 min
JGIota: Looking Back at How Cow Rumen Samples Landed on a Syllabus
Back in 2011, JGI-supported researchers published a paper in the journal Science. They’d used metagenomics to sift for microbial genes encoding carbohydrate-chomping enzymes in cow rumen — and found 27,000 candidates. The data from that study is now used across California State University campuses for biotechnology education as part of a course-based undergraduate resource experience. Hear from CSU San Marcos Professor Matt Escobar and UC Davis Associate Professor Matthias Hess, also the chai...
S3 · E7 · 3 Nov 2022 · 19 min
From Sample Shipments to Sequences – A Tour of the JGI’s Sequencing Pipeline
Every year, the JGI sequences around 35,000 samples — from plants, algae, bacteria, archaea, fungi, viruses — to support scientists around the world. Most of those researchers send their samples in from afar, without ever hearing much about the sequencing lab. So today, Chris Daum walks through the JGI’s sequencing pipeline, where there are freezers with names — but not doors — and robots handle a bunch of benchwork. Links from this episode: Find all episode transcripts on our websiteSubmit a...
S3 · E6 · 6 Oct 2022 · 7 min
JGIota: Looking Back at Methane-Making Microbes
We count on livestock for food and fiber, but raising these animals also produces an atmosphere-warming gas: methane. Those emissions mainly come from gut microbes — the bacteria and archaea breaking down plant matter. So since 2010, the JGI has supported researchers studying those microbial methane-makers. Eventually, that could help us dial back their emissions, while still producing things like meat, milk, and wool. Hear more from JGI collaborators Sinead Leahy (New Zealand Agricultural Gr...
S3 · E5 · 22 Sep 2022 · 18 min
The Fungi That Survive In Antarctica
Black fungi are microscopic and mighty. They survive everywhere from Antarctica to Joshua Tree National Park, despite extremely harsh conditions. And their survival secrets could one day help other organisms survive hotter, drier climates. So University of Tuscia researchers Laura Selbmann and Claudia Coleine are working with scientists from around the world – and the JGI – to understand them better. Links from this episode: Find all episode transcripts on our websiteIntegrated Microbial Ge...
S3 · E4 · 15 Sep 2022 · 6 min
JGIota: Looking Back at Sequencing for Soybeans
The soybean is a crop that could boost biofuels and fertilize fields. So in 2010, the JGI helped publish the original genome sequence for the soybean, Glycine max. With a full genome sequence, researchers have been able to look into soybean’s strengths – along with a fungus that threatens this important crop. Hear more about that work from researchers Gary Stacey (University of Missouri), Peter van Esse (The Sainsbury Laboratory) and Sebastien Duplessis (INRAE). Links from this episode: Find...
S3 · E3 · 25 Aug 2022 · 19 min
Better Crops With a Pointillist Approach to Plant Genomics
In this episode, we peer into plant cells. Researchers are using measurements from single cells to understand which genes help plants grow, get nutrients, weather drought, and more. And eventually, their findings could help us grow better crops, with less impact on our planet. Links from this episode: Find all episode transcripts on our websiteMonet’s Waterloo Bridge at Sunset (1904)Serat’s A Sunday on La Grande Jatte (1884)Submit a proposal to work with the JGI: https://jointgeno.me/proposal...
S3 · E2 · 11 Aug 2022 · 6 min
JGIota: The Algae Nicknamed ‘Chlamy’
This shorter episode is about a tiny, single-celled alga – Chlamydomonas reinhardtii – that’s managed to have a big impact. UC Berkeley plant biologist Sabeeha Merchant explains why she works on this alga, how researchers managed to sequence its genome, and what it has to teach us about other organisms – like plants. Links from this episode Find all episode transcripts on our websiteChlamydomonas reinhardtii on Phytozome and PhycoCosm The original sequence: Science Our contact i...
S3 · E1 · 28 Jul 2022 · 21 min
Chomping Toward Better Plastic Recycling
We know all kinds of things about plastic – except, how to break it down for recycling. But some hungry insects can digest plastic. So researchers are taking a look at how these critters process plastic, to improve plastic recycling by following their lead. Links from this episode: Find all episode transcripts on our websiteSubmit a proposal to work with the JGI! Genome Insider is a production of the Joint Genome Institute. -- Sound Effects Credits: "Splash, Small, A.wav" by I...

About Genome Insider

Genome Insider is a English tech & science podcast from JGI. Melo plays each episode straight from the publisher's own feed — no ads added, no account needed — and remembers where you stopped, in this browser only.

Publisher: JGI
Language: English
Category: Tech & Science
New episodes: Monthly
Typical length: 21 min
Latest episode: 11 Aug 2026
Feed: RSS — paste into any podcast app
Apple Podcasts: podcasts.apple.com/podcast/id1497037638

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