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The Role of Genomics and Transcriptomics in Understanding Critical Mineral Biology
July 30, 2026

Overview

EMSL 2026 Summer School: Day 4.

The U.S. is focused on increasing and strengthening a domestic supply of critical minerals and materials (CMMs) to provide the nation with energy independence and sustainable energy technologies. 

For one week in July, researchers of all career levels, including graduate students, joined national laboratory and academic experts at EMSL 2026 Summer School to explore methods used to uncover the molecular properties and behavior of CMMs.

Check out recorded presentations from Day 4 using the navigation menu at left.

  • Session 1: Mining Biological Information: Multiomics Insights into Critical Mineral Metabolism
     
  • Session 2: Deciphering the Codes Behind Microbial Metabolism: From DNA Reads to Genomes
     
  • Session 3: Basic Functional Annotation and Genome-scale Metabolic Modeling 
     
  • Session 4: Modern Protein Annotation Techniques
     
  • Session 5: Transcriptomics and Metatranscriptomics: Capturing Microbial Activity in the Environment

Mining Biological Information: Multiomics Insights into Critical Mineral Metabolism

Pranav Dawar (Postdoctoral Researcher, EMSL) discusses how we use multiomics—specifically transcriptomics and proteomics—for critical mineral metabolism in microbes that we can further leverage to improve the recovery of critical minerals of interest.

Pranav Dawar

Pranav Dawar

EMSL

Deciphering the Codes Behind Microbial Metabolism: From DNA Reads to Genomes

Young Song (Postdoctoral Researcher, EMSL) discusses:

  • Sequencing technologies
  • Raw sequence processing
  • Assembly
  • Bin/MAG generation and characterization (completion/contamination)
Young Song

Young Song

EMSL

Basic Functional Annotation and Genome-scale Metabolic Modeling

Amy Zimmerman (Computational Biologist, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory) discusses gene calling, general functional annotation, and construction of GEMs.

Modern Protein Annotation Techniques

Bob Danczak (Data Scientist, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory) discusses:

  • Protein family annotation – HMMs, PLMs
  • Leveraging structural predictions
  • Focusing on identification of metal-dependent metabolism and metal-binding proteins

Transcriptomics and Metatranscriptomics: Capturing Microbial Activity in the Environment

Christian Ayala-Ortiz (Postdoctoral Researcher, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory) discusses normalization, read mapping, data exploration, and capturing microbial activity in the environment.