Researchers at UC Berkeley have developed methods to deliver biomolecules to plant cells using new plant-derived cell penetrating peptides (CPPs). Despite the revolution in DNA editing that the last decade has brought, plant genetic engineering has not been able to benefit to the same extent. This is due to certain challenges in plant physiology that limit the delivery of exogenous protein cargos, as required in the CRISPR-Cas9 system, primarily due to the plant cell wall. In mammalian cells, for instance, cargo delivery can be accomplished using cell-penetrating peptides (CPPs) which are short peptides that facilitate the transport of cargo molecules through the plasma membrane to the cytosol. While this technology has been optimized in mammalian cells, few have studied the delivery of CPPs in plants to verify whether the cell wall is permissible to these materials. Another barrier to the use of nanotechnologies for plant biomolecule delivery is the lack of quantitative validation of successful intracellular protein delivery. The near universal dependence on confocal microscopy to validate delivery of fluorescent proxy cargoes can be inappropriate for use in plants due to various physiological plant properties, for example intrinsic autofluorescence of plant tissues. Therefore, there exists an unmet need for new materials and methods to deliver biomolecules to plant cells and to confirm the delivery of proteins of varying sizes into walled plant tissues. Stage of Research The inventors have developed methods to deliver proteins into plant cells using cell penetrating peptides which are appropriate for use with CRISPR-Cas9 technology, siRNAs, zinc-finger nucleases, TALENs, and other DNA editing methods. They have also developed a biomolecule fluorophore-based assay to accurately quantitate protein delivery to plants cells.Stage of DevelopmentResearch - in vitro 

There are many applications in which there is the need for storage of matter prone to biological contamination for extended period, from days to years. These applications include food, agricultural products, biological matter, and biotechnological matter.  Isobaric (constant pressure) freezing is one method of food preservation, however, freezing causes the deterioration of the quality of the preserved matter. High pressure processing followed by sterilization by refrigerating it at 4 ºC is common, but microorganisms can grow at 4 ºC and the product is sterile for limited periods of time of days. Thus, there is still a need for good preservation technologies that inhibits or reduce growth of microbial contaminants while maintaining their fresh-like characteristics and nutritional value.  UC Berkeley inventors and others have developed a device and methods for long term preservation of matter that inhibits or eliminates biological contaminants with isochoric freezing. 

Within the plant kingdom, a wide variety of species possess an extraordinary ability to regenerate whole organs and tissues naturally. Invasive weeds such as Japanese knotweed can regenerate from tiny root fragments in the soil, and many gardeners’ favorites can be propagated by taking cuttings from fully-grown plants. However, this flexible ability to regenerate organs is missing from most economically important crop species, and is currently the single biggest bottleneck for plant biotechnology.  While there is an increasingly impressive array of tools to edit the genes of a plant cell, regenerating whole organs and body plans from edited cells via labor-intensive tissue culture remains a painstaking process – often requiring a year or more – and resulting in undesirable mutations and chromosome instability.  UCB researchers have discovered that complete genetic knockout of the DNA demethylation pathway in the model plant Arabidopsis dramatically enhances the ability of plant organs to regenerate after wounding. In many plants, including Arabidopsis, regeneration after wounding does not occur naturally and requires intensive tissue culture. By contrast, quadruple homozygous mutant plants harboring loss of function mutations to all four DNA demethylase enzymes capably regenerate all organs and complete body plans after cutting, even in the absence of exogenous plant hormones and tissue culture. 

Gallium nitride is an essential semiconductor material that has shown great promise in electronic and optoelectronic applications. Its synthesis traditionally requires high temperatures (~300-1000℃) and/or pressures (~1-100MPa) in order to break the strong bond in molecular nitrogen. Manufacture of gallium nitride and similar semiconductor materials under these conditions is very expensive. Additionally, artificial nitrogen fixation in the form of ammonia manufacture is critical to the global food supply, but similarly requires very expensive high temperature and/or pressure synthesis. To address these problems, researchers at UC Berkeley have developed a method to synthesize gallium nitride from molecular nitrogen at approximately room temperature (30℃) and atmospheric pressure. This process can be accomplished more cheaply than traditional methods, using only standard reagents and equipment. Researchers have confirmed that prior to the synthesis of gallium nitride, atomic nitrogen is freely dissociated. This suggests that a similar method can be used in the manufacture of other nitride semiconductor materials, or even of nitrogenous substances such as ammonia.

The inventors have developed an engineering approach to identify novel and nonobvious membrane-associated accessory protein (MAAP) sequence variants that confer increased Adeno-associated virus (AAV) secretion during packaging. The technique is based upon the iterative process of sequence diversification and selection of functional gene variants known as directed evolution. First, the inventors generated a library of more than 1E6 MAAP variants. The variants were subjected to five rounds of packaging into an AAV2 capsid for which MAAP expression was inactivated without altering the viral protein VP1 open reading frame (ORF) (AAV2-MAAP-null). Among each iterative packaging round, the inventors observed a progressive increase in both the overall titer and ratio of secreted vector genomes conferred by the bulk selected MAAP library population. Next-generation sequencing uncovered common mutational features that were enriched up to over 10,000-fold on the amino acid level. Individual MAAP variants were isolated and systematically tested for effect on recombinant AAV2-MAAP-null packaging in HEK293 cells. The inventors predict that this work may be applicable to increasing per-cell AAV output in industrial settings, potentially reducing global costs and increasing functional vector recovery in downstream manufacturing processes.BACKGROUNDParvoviruses are small, single-stranded DNA viruses that are ubiquitously found in many animal species. AAV is a prototypic dependoparvovirus whose replication cycle requires the function of helper genes from larger co-infected viruses such as Adenoviruses or Herpesviruses. The natural genome of AAV contains ~4.7 kb of ssDNA that encodes up to ten known proteins in a highly overlapped fashion. The rep gene encodes four protein products named based on their molecular weight: Rep72 and Rep68 facilitate genomic replication, whereas Rep52, and Rep40 play essential roles in loading nascent ssDNA genomes into assembled capsids. Downstream of rep lies the cap gene, which encodes three known protein products off of overlapping reading frames: VP1, VP2, and VP3 are structural proteins that assemble to form the capsid, the assembly activating protein (AAP) targets VP proteins to the nucleus and is involved in capsid assembly. The most recently discovered AAV-encoded gene is the membrane-associated accessory protein (MAAP). MAAP is encoded by an alternative ORF in the AAV cap gene that is found in all presently reported natural serotypes. Gene delivery by recombinant AAV (rAAV) have shown significant success in both research and clinical gene therapy applications. In the rAAV system, Rep and Cap are removed from between AAV’s 5’ and 3’ inverted terminal repeats (ITRs) and provided in trans. Instead, a transgene of interest is inserted between the ITRs and subsequently packaged into the nascent AAV capsids. However, manufacturing quantities of good manufacturing practice (GMP)-grade rAAVs necessary to achieve current and projected dosing requirements–particularly in a clinical context–presents a significant hurdle to expanding rAAV-based gene therapies. Recently, evidence has emerged supporting a functional role of MAAP in AAV egress. This led to the hypothesis that MAAP could be engineered to facilitate increased levels of secreted AAV produced from HEK293 cells. 

The inventors have developed a method of mutagenizing user-defined regions of cytoplasmic DNA using a single guide RNA (sgRNA) or combinations of sgRNAs and a highly engineered fusion polypeptide comprising: a nuclear export sequence (NES)-containing, engineered nuclear localization sequence (NLS)-lacking, enzymatically active, RNA-guided endonuclease that introduces a single-stranded break in cytoplasmic DNA, and an error-prone DNA polymerase. This novel technology encompasses and provides evidence for the use of RNA-guided nucleases with relaxed PAM requirements, which are particularly useful for AT-rich targets such as the vaccinia virus genome. The inventors show that the truncation of up to several base pairs from the PAM-distal template binding region of the sgRNAs significantly increases the functional activity and specificity of the targeted mutagenesis complex. Moreover, the invention describes specific methods for the use of this technology to edit cytoplasmically replicating viruses with large DNA genomes, using poxviruses as a model system. The novel editing platform and methods selectively and continuously accelerate diversification of user-defined sites in the vaccinia genome during infection, while retaining most library members, due to significantly lowering deleterious off-target mutations. BACKGROUND Nucleocytoplasmic large DNA viruses (NCLDVs) are a group of viruses that harbor large (150 kbp - 1.2 mbp) double-stranded DNA genomes and replicate in the cytoplasm of eukaryotic cells. An example of an NCLDV that has historically been among the most prominent tools in human health is vaccinia, a poxvirus. Hundreds of millions of humans have been intentionally inoculated with vaccinia as part of a global effort to eliminate smallpox, which was declared eradicated in 1980.Vaccinia and some other poxviruses remain highly scientifically relevant in the post-eradication world. They are useful as vaccines against deadly poxvirus outbreaks that could potentially arise from natural spillover, bioterrorism, or biowarfare, as well as due to their therapeutic promise as oncolytic agents to selectively deliver anti-cancer transgenes and recruit adaptive immunity while leaving healthy cells unharmed. Directed evolution is a powerful engineering technique for evolving new phenotypes that are beneficial for biotechnological applications but for which there may have never been a selective pressure to evolve in nature. Both natural and directed evolution depend upon generation of genetic diversity, followed by a selective pressure. While natural evolution generates genetic diversity randomly and throughout the entirety of the genome, directed evolution ideally focuses mutations within specific genomic windows connected to the phenotype that one wishes to engineer. However, there is a need in the art for compositions and methods for mutagenizing a target DNA in the cytoplasm of mammalian cells. NCLDVs, which either partially or entirely express their own replicative and translational machinery independent of the nucleus, are difficult, and in many cases impossible, to produce from plasmid DNA in cells. Thus, NCLDVs are not amenable to standard in vitro molecular diversification strategies.  

Plants rely on systemic signaling mechanisms to establish whole-plant defense in response to insect and nematode attack. The Glutamate receptor-like (GLR) genes have been implicated in long-distance propagation of wound signals to initiate accumulation of defense hormone jasmonate (JA) at undamaged distal sites.UCB researchers have shown the ability to desensitize GLR channels, providing a potential target for engineering anti-herbivore defense in crops.

In this technology, the inventors introduce additives to purposely change the morphology of polycaprolactone (PCL) by increasing the bending and twisting of crystalline lamellae. These morphological changes immobilize chain-ends preferentially at the crystalline/amorphous interfaces and limit chain-end accessibility by the embedded processive enzyme. This chain end redistribution reduces the polymer-to-monomer conversion from >95% to less than 50%, causing formation of highly crystalline plastic pieces including microplastics. By synergizing both random chain scission and processive depolymerization, it is feasible to navigate morphological changes in polymer/additive blends and to achieve near complete depolymerization. The random scission enzymes in the amorphous domains create new chain ends that are subsequently bound and depolymerized by processive enzymes. Present studies further highlight the importance to consider host polymer morphological effects on the reactions catalyzed by embedded catalytic species.This is part of a patent family in compostable plastics.  

UC researchers have discovered a novel use of proteins denoted CasLamda/Cas12L within the Type V CRISPR Cas superfamily distantly related to CasX, CasY and other published type V sequences.  These CasLamda/Cas12L proteins utilize a guide RNA to perform RNA-directed cleavage of DNA.  The researchers have developed compounds and structures for use in in editing plant cells.

The inventors have developed ion-selective potentiometric sensors for monitoring soil analytes with naturally degradable substrate, conductor, electrode, and encapsulant materials that minimize pollution and ecotoxicity. This novel sensor-creation method uses printing technologies for the measurement of nitrate, ammonium, sodium, calcium, potassium, phosphate, nitrite, and others. Monitoring soil analytes is key to precision agriculture and optimizing the health and growth of plant life. 

In developed countries, buildings demand a large percentage of a region's energy-generating requirements. This has led to an urgent need for efficient buildings with reduced energy requirements. In office buildings, lighting takes up 20% to 45% of the total energy consumption. Furthermore, the adoption of smart lighting control strategies such as daylight harvesting is shown to reduce lighting energy use by 30% to 50%.For most closed-loop lighting control systems, the real-time data of the daylight level at areas of interest (e.g., the office workbench) are the most important inputs. Current state-of-the-art solutions use dense arrays of luxmeters (photosensors) to monitor the daylight environment inside buildings. The luxmeters are placed on either workbenches, or ceilings and walls near working areas. Digital cameras are used in controlled laboratory environments and occasionally in common buildings to evaluate glare resulting from excessive daylight. The disadvantage of these sensor-based approaches is that they're expensive to install and commission. Additionally, the sample area of these sensors is limited to either the area of the luxmeters or the view of the cameras. Consequently, many sensors are needed to measure the daylight in a large office space.To address this situation, researchers at UC Berkeley developed a portable cyber-physical system for real time, daylight evaluation in buildings, agriculture facilities, and solar farms (collectively referred to as "structures").

The CRISPR-Cas system is now understood to confer bacteria and archaea with acquired immunity against phage and viruses. CRISPR-Cas systems consist of Cas proteins, which are involved in acquisition, targeting and cleavage of foreign DNA or RNA, and a CRISPR array, which includes direct repeats flanking short spacer sequences that guide Cas proteins to their targets.  Class 2 CRISPR-Cas are streamlined versions in which a single Cas protein bound to RNA is responsible for binding to and cleavage of a targeted sequence. The programmable nature of these minimal systems has facilitated their use as a versatile technology that is revolutionizing the field of genome manipulation.  There is a need in the art for additional Class 2 CRISPR/Cas systems (e.g., Cas protein plus guide RNA combinations).     UC Berkeley researchers discovered a new type of CasPhi/12j protein.  Site-specific binding and/or cleavage of a target nucleic acid (e.g., genomic DNA, ds DNA, RNA, etc.) can occur at locations (e.g., target sequence of a target locus) determined by base-pairing complementarity between the Cas12 guide RNA (the guide sequence of the Cas12 guide RNA) and the target nucleic acid.  Similar to CRISPR Cas9, the compact Cas12 enzymes are expected to have a wide variety of applications in genome editing and nucleic acid manipulation.  

Imaging the material property distribution of solids has a broad range of applications in materials science, biomechanical engineering, and clinical diagnosis. For example, as various diseases progress, the elasticity of human cells, tissues, and organs can change significantly. If these changes in elasticity can be measured accurately over time, early detection and diagnosis of different disease states can be achieved. Elasticity imaging is an emerging method to qualitatively image the elasticity distribution of an inhomogeneous body. A long-standing goal of this imaging is to provide alternative methods of clinical palpation (e.g. manual breast examination) for reliable tumor diagnosis. The displacement distribution of a body under externally applied forces (or displacements) can be acquired by a variety of imaging techniques such as ultrasound, magnetic resonance, and digital image correlation. A strain distribution, determined by the gradient of a displacement distribution, can be computed (or approximated) from measured displacements. If the strain and stress distributions of a body are both known, the elasticity distribution can be computed using the constitutive elasticity equations. However, there is currently no technique that can measure the stress distribution of a body in vivo. Therefore, in elastography, the stress distribution of a body is commonly assumed to be uniform and a measured strain distribution can be interpreted as a relative elasticity distribution. This approach has the advantage of being easy to implement. The uniform stress assumption in this approach, however, is inaccurate for an inhomogeneous body. The stress field of a body can be distorted significantly near a hole, inclusion, or wherever the elasticity varies. Though strain-based elastography has been deployed on many commercial ultrasound diagnostic-imaging devices, the elasticity distribution predicted based on this method is prone to inaccuracies.To address these inaccuracies, researchers at UC Berkeley have developed a de novo imaging method to learn the elasticity of solids from measured strains. Our approach involves using deep neural networks supervised by the theory of elasticity and does not require labeled data for the training process. Results show that the Berkeley method can learn the hidden elasticity of solids accurately and is robust when it comes to noisy and missing measurements.

Producing meat products using cells grown in culture (instead of via animal husbandry farming) has many benefits and great potential. Current cell-cultured approaches either: (1) use suspension culture to produce homogenous products that don't meet consumer taste expectations for a substitute meat, or (2) organ culture methods to create products that meet consumer taste expectations, but at unacceptably high prices. To address this situation, researchers at UC Berkeley have been developing a process by which cells are grown in free suspension, making possible the economies of scaling that result from using large stirred tanks. After growth, the cells can be assembled into desirable macroscopic structures by controlling the conditions under which the desired multiple cell types and scaffolds are mixed and dewatered. The macroscopic structures include features such as fat marbling and muscle fiber orientation as expected by meat consumers.

The inventors have developed two new CasX gene-editing platforms (DpbCasXv2 and PlmCasXv2) through rationale structural engineering of the CasX protein and gRNA, which yield improved in vitro and in vivo behaviors. These platforms dramatically increase DNA cleavage activity and can be used as the basis for further improving CasX tools.The RNA-guided CRISPR-associated (Cas) protein CasX has been reported as a fundamentally distinct, RNA-guided platform compared to Cas9 and Cpf1. Structural studies revealed structural differences within the nucleotide-binding loops of CasX, with a compact protein size less than 1,000 amino acids, and guide RNA (gRNA) scaffold stem. These structural differences affect the active ternary complex assembly, leading to different in vivo and in vitro behaviors of these two enzymes.

Green algae have been promoted as vehicles for the production of biofuels, pharmaceuticals, food additives, vaccines, and for toxic substance remediation, and many plants are the focus of efforts to produce drought tolerant, pest resistant, or more nutritious crops. Many of these engineering efforts rely on expression of multiple transgenes (e.g. in a multistep metabolic pathway to avoid accumulation of a toxic intermediate). It can also be useful to produce two or more proteins in a particular stoichiometry, as in a heterodimer that requires equimolar production of two polypeptides. Whether the goal is to express one transgene, or several, most efforts to transform plants and algae require cotransformation of the gene of interest with a selectable marker, such as a gene that confers resistance to a drug or herbicide, or complements an auxotrophy. Unfortunately, commonly used methods for co-transformation of algae and other plants are very inefficient. UC Berkeley investigators have developed a method for polycistronic gene expression,  and show how to achieve this using the organism's own sequences, without recourse to viral elements or other foreign elements, which is important for any technology where bioproducts are generated, since these may be used on humans (cosmetics) or in humans (food additives), especially crop technology.

The inventors have constructed conjugative plasmids for intra- and inter-species delivery and expression of RNA-guided CRISPR-Cas transposases for organism- and site-specific genome editing by targeted transposon insertion. This invention enables integration of large, customizable DNA segments (encoded within a transposon) into prokaryotic genomes at specific locations and with low rates of off-target integration.

Mutated versions of Cas12a that remove its non-specific ssDNA cleavage activity without affecting site-specific double-stranded DNA cutting activity. These mutant proteins, in which a short amino acid sequence is deleted or changed, provide improved genome editing tools that will avoid potential off-target editing due to random ssDNA nicking.

The CRISPR-Cas system is now understood to confer bacteria and archaea with acquired immunity against phage and viruses. CRISPR-Cas systems consist of Cas proteins, which are involved in acquisition, targeting and cleavage of foreign DNA or RNA, and a CRISPR array, which includes direct repeats flanking short spacer sequences that guide Cas proteins to their targets.  Class 2 CRISPR-Cas are streamlined versions in which a single Cas protein bound to RNA is responsible for binding to and cleavage of a targeted sequence. The programmable nature of these minimal systems has facilitated their use as a versatile technology that is revolutionizing the field of genome manipulation.  Current CRISPR Cas technologies are based on systems from cultured bacteria, leaving untapped the vast majority of organisms that have not been isolated.  There is a need in the art for additional Class 2 CRISPR/Cas systems (e.g., Cas protein plus guide RNA combinations).     UC Berkeley researchers discovered a new type of Cas 12 protein.  Site-specific binding and/or cleavage of a target nucleic acid (e.g., genomic DNA, ds DNA, RNA, etc.) can occur at locations (e.g., target sequence of a target locus) determined by base-pairing complementarity between the Cas12 guide RNA (the guide sequence of the Cas12 guide RNA) and the target nucleic acid.  Similar to CRISPR Cas9, Cas12 enzymes are expected to have a wide variety of applications in genome editing and nucleic acid manipulation.    

UC researchers and others have created a system and method for impregnating a targeted solid food item with impregnation fluids during the isochoric freezing process. The impregnation fluids are selected to enhance the quality of the targeted food item. Specifically, the isochoric freezing process is used to impregnate a fruit or vegetable with an impregnation solution. The solution is infused into the void pores of fruits and vegetables, without destroying cellular tissue. 

Metal deficiency is implicated in a variety of genetic, neurological, cardiovascular, and metabolic diseases. Current approaches for addressing metal deficiency rely on generic metal ion supplementation, which can potentially lead to detrimental off-target metal accumulation in unwanted tissues and subsequently trigger oxidative stress and damage cascades. The inventors have developed a new modular platform for delivering metal ions in a tissue-specific manner and demonstrate liver-targeted copper supplementation as a proof of concept of this strategy. Specifically, the inventors designed and synthesized a N-acetylgalactosamine-functionalized ionophore, Gal-Cu(gtsm), to serve as a copper-carrying “Trojan Horse” that targets liver-localized asialoglycoprotein receptors (ASGPRs) and releases copper only after being taken up by cells, where the reducing intracellular environment triggers copper release from the ionophore. The inventors utilized a combination of bioluminescence imaging and inductively-coupled plasma mass spectrometry assays to establish ASGPR-dependent copper accumulation with this reagent in both liver cell culture and mouse models with minimal toxicity. The modular nature of this synthetic approach presages that this platform can be expanded to deliver a broader range of metals to specific cells, tissues, and organs in a more directed manner to treat metal deficiency in disease. This patent broadly covers directed metal delivery to select organs, tissues, and organelles.

96 Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;} Current methods of biomolecule delivery to mature plants are limited due to the presence of plant cell wall, and are additionally hampered by low transfection efficiency, high toxicity of the transfection material, and host range limitation. For this reason, transfection is often limited to protoplast cultures where the cell wall is removed, and not to the mature whole plant.  Unfortunately, protoplasts are not able to regenerate into fertile plants, causing these methods to have low practical applicability. Researchers at the University of California have developed a method for delivery of genetic materials into mature plant cells within a fully-developed mature plant leaf, that is species-independent. This method utilizes a nano-sized delivery vehicle for targeted and passive transport of biomolecules into mature plants of any plant species. The delivery method is inexpensive, easy, and robust, and can transfer biomolecules into all phenotypes of any plant species with high efficiency and low toxicity.

Lignocellulosic biomass derived from plant cell walls is the most abundant raw material for biofuels and renewable chemicals production.  Hemicellulose comprises about 30% of the total weight of lignocellulosic biomass. In contrast to cellulose, hemicellulose components are readily depolymerized into short oligomers and released into the liquid phase during pretreatment.  It is of great interest to convert the released hemicellulose components into fuels or other value-add chemicals for building an economical biomass conversion process. There are ten times more microorganisms than human cells in a healthy adult.  The symbiosis between the microbiome and human organs is increasingly recognized as a major player in health and well-being.  Xylooligosaccharides and xylitol, both derived from hemicellulose, can benefit gut flora and oral flora, respectively. Xylooligosaccharides (XOS, also called xylodextrins) are naturally occurring oligosaccharides, found in bamboo shoots, fruits, vegetables, milk and honey.  Industrial scale production of XOS can be carried out with much less expensive lignocellulosic materials by hydrothermal treatment or enzymatic hydrolysis.  A broad range of applications of XOS have been demonstrated, including as functional food, prevention and treatment of gastrointestinal infections, animal feed for fish and poultry, agricultural yield enhancer and ripening agent, and as active agents against osteoporosis, pruritus cutaneous, otitis, and skin and hair disorders.  In the current market, the most important applications of XOS correspond to ingredients for functional foods as a prebiotic, or formulated as synbiotics. XOS has been shown to promote beneficial bacteria Bifidobacterium adolescentis growth in vitro and in vivo.  It has been estimated that the prebiotics market will reach $4.8 billion by 2018. Xylitol is another hemicellulose-derived compound beneficial to human health.  For many bacteria and yeasts, the uptake of non-utilizable xylitol interferes with hexose utilization, which helps the human body to rebuild a healthy microbiome.  Xylitol has been used to prevent middle ear infections and tooth decay.  In addition, xylitol possesses 33% fewer calories but similar sweetness compared to sucrose and has been widely used as a substitute sweetener.  While chemical hydrogenation of xylose remains the major industrial method of xylitol production, microbial fermentation has become more popular in the newly built plants due to lower conversion cost. There exists a need for improved methods of producing xylooligosaccharides and related compounds, such as xylooligosaccharides with xylitol components.    UC researchers discovered a new set of fungal metabolic intermediates, named xylosyl-xylitol oligomers and developed the enzymatic and microbial fermentation method to produce such compounds. The detection and purification methods have also been developed.

There are an estimated 130 million wooden poles that support overhead power lines in the US.  Extreme weather, aging, storms or sabotage can all lead to potential damage of these poles and power lines, which can leave large areas without basic necessities.  Due to this risk, it’s anticipated that power utility companies will deploy sensors and corresponding energy harvesters to better respond to potential damage of this critical electricity grid infrastructure. To address this anticipated mass deployment of sensors and harvesters, researchers at UC Berkeley have developed technology improvements to harvesting of electrical energy from energized conductors carrying alternating currents, such as those on overhead and underground power lines (as well as power-supplying conductors in offices and dwellings).  These enhanced harvesters would improve the economics of deploying sensors across a national power grid.  The Berkeley harvesters can readily provide enough power to supply wireless communication devices, energy storage batteries and capacitors, as well as sensors such as accelerometers, particulate matter measuring devices, and atmospheric sensors.

Prolonged drought in California and the Southwest has both severely reduced water allocation to farmers, and substantially increased water prices. As the drought continues, so does the pressure to increase water use efficiency and streamline water delivery practices in agriculture. The systems currently in use are insufficiently precise to satisfy the demands of high value crops such as almonds and grapes, which often require watering regimes tailored to individual plants.UC Berkeley researchers have developed a low-cost system of mechanical valves and mobile robots that will address this issue. One or more valves can be installed per plant, and periodically adjusted by the robots based on sensor data. The system provides a fine-grained control of water flow to compensate for factors that vary across the planting region.