Speaker: Blas Cabrera, Professor of Physics, Stanford University Through cosmology and particle physics we review our understanding of how our universe came into existence. Of particular interest is what makes up dark matter the source of all structure formation. Direct detection experiments such as CDMS search directly for dark matter particles passing through the laboratory, indirect detection experiments such as GLAST/Fermi look for gamma rays from dark matter particle-antiparticle annihilations, and accelerators such as the LHC at CERN may soon provide direct evidence for the structure of particle physics in dark matter sector. http://physics.berkeley.edu/

eCHEM 1A: Online General Chemistry College of Chemistry, University of California, Berkeley http://chemistry.berkeley.edu/echem1a Curriculum and ChemQuizzes developed by Dr. Mark Kubinec and Professor Alexander Pines Chemical Demonstrations by Lonnie Martin Video Production by Jon Schainker and Scott Vento Developed with the support of The Camille & Henry Dreyfus Foundation

On October 18, Joe DeRisi, Co-President of the Chan Zuckerberg Biohub and UCSF Professor of Biochemistry and Biophysics, hosted a faculty forum at Berkeley to discuss the current Call for Applications for Chan Zuckerberg Investigatorships and take questions from faculty.

METABOLIC FLUX ANALYSIS OF BIODIESEL-PRODUCING E-COLI The last talk in the 2010-11 EBI Seminar Series features Hector Garcia Martin of the Joint BioEnergy Institute. Garcia Martin was born in Bilbao, part of the Basque region in Spain. He studied physics and specialized in solid state physics at the University of the Basque Country. His doctoral studies in condensed matter physics were performed at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His interest in biocomplexity and in using mathematical methods in microbial ecology drove him to work at the Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute, where he worked on metagenomics as a postdoctoral fellow. Seeking a more predictive framework for microbiology and microbial ecology, he started work at the Joint BioEnergy Institute in Emeryville and Lawrence Berkeley National Lab to develop predictive models for pure cultures as well as microbial communities. His abstract: Metabolic flux analysis aims to measure and/or predict the reaction rates for an organism metabolic network. In this talk I will present a short introduction to the two most popular flux analysis techniques: Flux Balance Analysis and 13C Metabolic Flux Analysis. As a working example of how these techniques can be useful in metabolic engineering I will also show how we are combining them to study a biodiesel producing E. coli strain produced at the Joint BioEnergy institute.