"These efforts will help protect forest ecosystems, conserve natural resources
and reduce pollution. However, small variations
in the 16S rRNA gene sequences allow scientists to detect distinct
bacteria. Then, the
Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation committee of distinguished marine microbial
ecologists selected the key species for in-depth sequencing from the many
hundreds of species in existing culture collections.
The Venter Institute is a 501 (c) (3) organization.

threatened relies

"Maintaining the ecological health of forests is a key factor in
sustaining the cultures, local communities and economies relying on this
resource," said Greg Taylor, Supply Chain Management executive .com/newsroom/press/pdfs/Paper_Procurement_Policy.----The universe of
microbes that lives in your stomach may be nearly as unique as your
fingerprint, according to researchers at the Stanford University
School of Medicine who have embarked on the early stages of exploring
the intestinal ecosystem . "Variation between individuals had been suspected, but our
data proved to be a dramatic confirmation of this belief. The Stanford team also worked with researchers at
The Institute for Genomic Research and the University of Manitoba.org), also led by the Venter
Institute.

baseline unep

"This new
policy expands on Bank of America's heritage of environmental stewardship to
address climate change, biodiversity and conservation of natural systems.Sorcerer2expedition.
The Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation will announce today the sequence
completion of the project's first organism, Erythrobacter litoralis at the
American Society of Limnology and Oceanography's annual meeting in Salt Lake
City, Utah ."
Marine microbiologists worldwide nominated the key strains based on
scientific criteria , geography, and potential biological interest.

geopolitical ecologists

"
The new procurement policy, implemented on April 1, has three primary
goals:

(1) Source Reduction and Recycling -- Minimize the bank's consumption of
paper products containing virgin wood fiber, in order to reduce
demand on forests. "But even with this
large sequencing project, which produced orders of magnitude more
sequence data than had been generated in the past, we are not
completely there yet.
For each of the three research subjects, the researchers analyzed
samples from six different anatomical sites inside the large intestine
as well as a stool sample.
Collaborators from Stanford are research associate Elisabeth Bik,
PhD; postdoctoral scholar Les Dethlefsen, PhD; and graduate student
Elizabeth Purdom.

Venter Institute to Sequence More Than 100 Key Marine Microbes in One Year

"By analyzing the whole genomes of
this large number of carefully selected microbes, we will greatly increase our
understanding of the invisible world of marine microbes.

Try What is Biodiversity? and Defining The 'B' Word for approaches with differing emphases.

threatened iucn

The company serves clients in 150 countries and has
relationships with 98 percent of the U.S.

quantifying biodiversity

Stanford Gut Check Shows Diversity of Intestinal Ecosystem

The paper by Eckburg and Relman is intended as the first of
several studies looking at how microbial communities vary according to
host, diet, geography, disease and other variables. For more information, please
visit the Web site of the medical center's Office of Communication +
Public Affairs at http://mednews. Craig Venter Institute will
sequence the genomes of more than 100 of the key marine microbes stored in
culture collections around the world. Other members include Stephen
Giovannoni, Oregon State University; Daniel Vaulot, Station Biologique de
Roscoff, France; and Jonathan Zehr, University of California, Santa Cruz., the institute is home to approximately 200 staff and scientists
with expertise in human and evolutionary biology, genetics,
bioinformatics/informatics , high-throughput DNA sequencing, information
technology, and genomic and environmental policy research .

ecosystem quantifying

, Bank of America, the nation's
largest retail bank, and one of the world's largest consumers of paper
products, has devised a new paper procurement policy that reduces impacts on
the world's forest ecosystems and promotes sustainable forestry practices. 1 overall Small Business Administration
(SBA) lender in the United States and the No."
"The Marine Microbe Genome Project will generate new knowledge about the
composition, function, and ecological role of microbial communities that is
critical to understand the health and productivity of the ocean," said Lita
Proctor, Sr.

Below is a definition adapted from the World Resources Institute, World Conservation Union, and United Nations Environment Programme in Global Biodiversity Strategy 1992.

ecologists quantifying

Industry leading initiative aims to reduce virgin fiber demand and protect
endangered forests

CHARLOTTE , N.C. "Despite this large effort, we are still not approaching the
point of complete coverage of the intestinal community in any one
individual -- much less the complete coverage of all human intestinal
communities.

The J.

The Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation was established in September 2000 to
create positive outcomes for future generations.

biotic biologically

During the same time period in which the bank's assets have grown from
$670 billion in 2000 to more than $1 trillion in 2004 , it has decreased the
amount of paper used in internal operations by 32 percent. To reduce paper
sent to outside parties, it now offers online banking customers the option of
electronic statements in place of paper statements, for which over 1 million
customers have signed up. Fortune 500 companies and 85 percent
of the Global Fortune 500. Relman's lab at the Veteran Affairs Palo
Alto Heath Care System specializes in microbial pathogen discovery and
human microbial ecology, and in appreciating the roles played by
microbes in human health and disease.edu

All results of the genomic analysis will be released into the public
domain through the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI), the
home of Genbank, at the U.

extinction ecologists

S. Bank of America Corporation stock (NYSE: BAC ) is
listed on the New York Stock Exchange.
"This project allows us to go from fewer than ten completely sequenced
ocean microbes to well over 100 in only one year," said J. The committee is co-
chaired by Edward Delong at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and
Mary Anne Moran at the University of Georgia.

nbii ecosystem

Data to Help Scientists Study Biodiversity,
Ecology, Evolution, and Health

ROCKVILLE, Md. Craig Venter,
Ph.

geopolitical iucn

Bank of America Implements Paper Procurement Policy

The company
provides unmatched convenience in the United States, serving 33 million
consumer relationships with more than 5,800 retail banking offices , more than
16,700 ATMs and award-winning online banking with more than 12 million active
users .bankofamerica.

News Editors/Health/Medical Writers

STANFORD, Calif.
"The intestinal flora is critical to human physiology and a wide
spectrum of disease, but the first step in studying this ecosystem is
to figure out who is there and how the community census varies in time
and space ," said Eckburg, the lead author of the study published in
this week's online edition of Science Express .stanford.
The Venter Institute received an $8.

reflected biotic

(2) Sustainable Forest Practices -- Ensure that source forests from which
virgin wood fiber is procured are managed using environmentally
preferable practices.
(3) Protection of Endangered Forests -- Require the bank's suppliers of
paper products to identify and appropriately manage endangered and
high conservation value forests. Unlike people's genetic
makeup, their endogenous microbial communities may indicate where they
have been and what activities they have pursued in terms of travel,
diet , antibiotic use and the like., The J., president of the Venter Institute. Founded by J.

notably wcmc

"Suppliers of paper products to the bank must
remain in compliance with applicable laws and regulations governing timber
harvesting and ensure their third party suppliers also comply with applicable
laws and regulations. The
molecule, 16S rRNA, plays a role in the translation of the genetic
code and thus is critical to the organisms. They have been
working with biochemistry professor Patrick Brown, MD , PhD, and
graduate student Chana Palmer to develop a gene chip that can perform
a microbial census on complex communities and samples.

ecosystem juridical

"
As part of the policy, the bank will continue its existing efforts to
reduce paper consumption, maximize recycled content where paper elimination is
not feasible, and recycle the paper it uses in internal operations and
receives from external sources . 1 SBA lender to minority-owned
small businesses.

http://www.pdf

The team also used the samples to examine how microbial
communities differ among locations within the intestine as well as
among different people. Analyzing these genomes will help
scientists understand the chemical transformations that occur within the major
biogeochemical cycles vital to life. The microbes that the Venter Institute
is sequencing have all been isolated from the world 's oceans and then grown in
the laboratories of the many collaborating researchers.

threatened ecologists

In 2004, the bank recycled 28,268 tons of paper,
effectively recycling all the paper it uses internally, plus the same amount
again received from external sources. Bank of America is the No.com

* Serving more middle market banking clients than any other bank. In the
three healthy subjects he studied, he found 395 unique bacterial
species. The latter
will allow them to analyze samples much more quickly. This organism belongs to a class of bacteria that is abundant in
the ocean, but whose function is little understood. Craig Venter Institute is a not-for-profit research institute
dedicated to the advancement of the science of genomics; the understanding of
its implications for society; and the communication of those results to the
scientific community, the public, and policymakers .

biologically notably

The data will also provide a baseline
for interpreting the millions of new genes being discovered by the Sorcerer II
Expedition (http://www. Grantmaking supports the Foundation's principal areas of interest:
global environmental conservation, science, and the San Francisco Bay Area.

notably iucn

Using molecular techniques that detect all known types of microbes
and borrowing statistical techniques from field ecology and population
genetics, Paul Eckburg, MD, a postdoctoral scholar in infectious
diseases and geographic medicine, conducted the most extensive study
to date surveying the inhabitants of the lower digestive tract. Nearly two-thirds of the
bacteria they identified were novel, meaning that they had no genetic
close neighbors in the existing databases that store sequence
information about all known species. The
work was funded by grants from the National Institutes of Health, the
Ellison Medical Foundation, the Canadian Institutes of Health
Research, the Crohn's and Colitis Foundation of Canada, the National
Science Foundation and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. Data about their
genetic make-up will help scientists understand the functions that microbes
play in the ecology of the oceans. The institute's
areas of scientific focus include: genomic medicine with an emphasis on cancer
genomics and human genome resequencing and analysis; environmental genomic
analysis with an emphasis on microbial biodiversity, ecology, and evolution;
use of molecular and genomic methods to develop biological sources of clean
energy; synthetic genome development; and policy research on the ethical,
legal, and economic issues associated with genomic science and technology.

Biodiversity is not easily defined.

biodiversity microbes

"
In addition to simply encouraging best practices that protect endangered
forests, the new policy has teeth and aligns with the bank 's forest practices
lending policy, Taylor said. "Efficient use of
resources reduces environmental impacts and expenses, driving benefits for
both our shareholders and the communities in which we do business. The bank will require its suppliers to work with their third-party
suppliers of wood fiber to encourage and monitor compliance with conversion
requirements and promote retention of high conservation value forests and
natural forest ecosystems.
Eckburg and his team determined more than 13,000 sequences of 16S
rRNA. Most of what they identified included the usual suspects in the
intestinal flora, but there were surprises. "We
look forward to the data from the Venter Institute because it will provide a
genome reference collection to underpin and inform ongoing study of the
ocean's basic biological and chemical processes. Craig
Venter, Ph.

wcmc relies

In 2004, 70 percent of the paper purchased by the bank contained recycled
content, at an average of 20 percent post-consumer content.

About Bank of America
Bank of America is one of the world's largest financial institutions,
serving individual consumers, small and middle market businesses and large
corporations with a full range of banking, investing, asset management and
other financial and risk-management products and services." In contrast, the investigators found very limited
diversity within the archaea , microbes that look a lot like bacteria
but are genetically and biochemically as different from bacteria as
bacteria are from humans. Although the process can now be
done faster, Eckburg and Relman said they plan to complement this
current approach with the use of microarray technology. The Foundation funds
outcome-based grants and initiatives to achieve significant and measurable
results.

reflected geopolitical

"
Regarding forest practices, the bank will not align with suppliers engaged
in the conversion of high conservation value forests or natural forest
ecosystems to tree farms or plantations, on any scale, on lands that they own
or manage.
To protect endangered forests, Bank of America will require suppliers of
paper products to warrant that neither their products nor product inputs,
whether sourced from internal operations or third party suppliers, were
derived from the harvesting of primary tropical moist forests, or primary
forests in temperate or boreal forest regions that are not managed using
sustainable forestry practices as verified by an independent third party
audit.

http://www. This is just the tip of the iceberg.
"We thought we would find new ones, but it was a bit surprising to
see such a large percentage that had remained unidentified," said
Eckburg .
"We were surprised at the degree to which an individual determines
the particular picture of microbial diversity that we see," said
Relman.D.

iucn nbii

The bank developed the policy in partnership with a group of key
suppliers, such as International Paper, and environmental organizations such
as Metafore, a non-profit group that works to conserve, protect and restore
the world's forests , and the non-profit organization, Environmental Defense.
"We applaud Bank of America's commitment to use less paper, buy post-
consumer recycled paper and promote sustainable forest management among its
paper suppliers," said Environmental Defense senior economist Robert Bonnie.
Relman emphasized that the study looked at only a limited number
of individuals and examined only one genetic feature of the microbes,
so there are many studies that must and will follow.
It took the team about a year to carry out this analysis of the
microbial flora from three people.9 million grant from the Gordon and
Betty Moore Foundation to support a vastly expanded reference collection of
genomic analyses of marine microbes.

extinction richest

The bank has set
a goal that 90 percent of total paper purchases contain a minimum of 20
percent post-consumer recycled content by 2006.
"We believe our paper reduction and recycling efforts are already best in
class, but we are eager to raise the bar," Taylor said .bankofamerica. If the link is not live, please copy and paste into your browser."
An interesting corollary of this finding is that the ability to
create a comprehensive census of the microbes living inside a person
could have implications for human forensics.D.

iucn unep

Bank of America's new policy is a big step forward for
the financial services industry, and we hope other firms will follow its
lead .
To distinguish individual bacteria among the hundreds of types in
the samples, Eckburg took advantage of a technique that compares the
genetic sequence of a molecule shared by bacteria and archaea. The bacterium was found
in the Sargasso Sea by Stephen Giovannoni of Oregon State University.

quantifying microbes

For more information on the bank's paper procurement policy, click on the
link below."
Eckburg works with David Relman, MD, associate professor of
medicine (infectious diseases and geographic medicine) and of
microbiology and immunology.

Stanford University Medical Center integrates research, medical
education and patient care at its three institutions -- Stanford
University School of Medicine, Stanford Hospital + Clinics and Lucile
Packard Children's Hospital at Stanford .
These data will also be invaluable for studying the vast majority of
microbes that cannot be grown in laboratories, such as those collected by the
Sorcerer II Expedition, the Venter Institute 's global oceanographic voyage
that extends what is known about microbial biodiversity in marine and
terrestrial environments. Program Officer of the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation. National Institutes of Health.