To better serve Berkeley Lab travelers and staff who support the travel process, a new travel website design was created, with an eye toward making it easier to locate useful information. The site will be continuously updated in order to keep employees informed of changes to travel policies and procedures as well as the progress being made to replace Gelco with an intuitive, user-friendly expense reimbursement system. Send comments or suggestions here.

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Joint Genome Institute

JGI Secures Extension
On Genomics Facility

The Joint Genome Institute (JGI) has secured a five-year extension on its lease with an option for an additional five years. The University of California Regents have signed off on a deal with landlord Hall Equities Group that will ensure JGI's long-term presence in Walnut Creek, situated halfway between its parent facilities, Berkeley and Livermore Labs. The new lease enables the expansion of the current facility to include a vacant 18,000-square-foot building, which, after renovations, will serve to consolidate administrative and informatics staff and feature a new education outreach laboratory. Full story.

Push for Advance
In Synthetic Biology

With research backgrounds ranging from materials engineering to molecular biophysics, 17 leading scientists issued a statement announcing that, much as the discovery of DNA and creation of the transistor revolutionized science, there is a new scientific field on the brink of revolutionizing our approach to problems ranging from eco-safe energy to outbreaks of malaria. That research area is synthetic biology — the construction or redesign of biological systems components that do not naturally exist, by combining the engineering applications and practices of nanoscience with molecular biology. Berkeley Lab Director Steve Chu and Physical Biosciences Division Director Jay Keasling were among the signers. Full story.