Biology

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Sandia awarded for outstanding work in technology transfer

February 8, 2024 • ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — One of Sandia National Laboratories’ core missions is to help the world through innovation. However, transferring some of that innovation from the Labs to industry isn’t always an easy process. Through hard work and ingenuity, some Sandia employees are excelling at moving technology to market, a feat...

Stout supercomputer makes Top500 list

November 15, 2023 • ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Stout, a new Sandia National Laboratories supercomputer, secured its place on the Top500 computers list that was released Nov. 13. Boasting a performance of 8.9 petaflops, Stout claimed the No. 87 spot on the renowned benchmark list of the world’s fastest computers. Brewed from the National Nuclear...
Categories: Biology, Computing

Neutralizing antibodies for emerging viruses

December 14, 2021 • LIVERMORE, Calif. — Researchers at Sandia National Laboratories have created a platform for discovering, designing and engineering novel antibody countermeasures for emerging viruses. This new process of screening for nanobodies that “neutralize” or disable the virus represents a faster, more effective approach to developing nanobody therapies that prevent or treat...

Pathways to production

August 30, 2021 • LIVERMORE, Calif. — Biologists at Sandia National Laboratories developed comprehensive software that will help scientists in a variety of industries create engineered chemicals more quickly and easily. Sandia is now looking to license the software for commercial use, researchers said. Sandia’s stand-alone software RetSynth uses a novel algorithm to sort...
A graphical illustration of the kind of retrosynthetic analysis conducted by RetSynth software.

Sandia researchers use public data to forecast new coronavirus cases

June 30, 2020 • LIVERMORE, Calif. — Global data networks that connect people through their devices have made it possible to create accurate short-term forecasts of new COVID-19 cases, using a method pioneered by two researchers at Sandia National Laboratories. Jaideep Ray and Cosmin Safta used a model developed by Ray more than a...
Categories: Biology, Computing, Coronavirus

Fields of gold

April 4, 2019 • ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — On a drive around Sandia National Laboratories, ecologist Jennifer Payne sees more than wide-open desert, grasslands, cacti and dirt. She notices tiers of soil that have experienced stress, looks closely at the height and spacing of vegetation and recites the Latin names of native New Mexico plants...

Engineered light could improve health, food, suggests Sandia Labs researcher in Nature paper

January 9, 2019 • ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — People who believe light-emitting diodes, or LEDS, are just an efficient upgrade to the ordinary electric light bulb are stuck in their thinking, suggest Sandia National Laboratories researcher Jeff Tsao and colleagues from other institutions in a Nature “Perspectives” article published in late November. “LED lighting is...
Jeff Tsao

Sandia microneedles technique may mean quicker diagnoses of major illnesses

January 2, 2019 • ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — When people are in the early stages of an undiagnosed disease, immediate tests that lead to treatment are the best first steps. But a blood draw — usually performed by a medical professional armed with an uncomfortably large needle — might not be quickest, least painful or...
Philip Miller

Early biologists catch the bird … and lizard … and snake

October 25, 2018 • ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Its heart beating rapidly, a wild gray flycatcher sits in the palm of a steady hand, making side-eye contact and shaking, waiting for just the right moment to escape from its perceived human predator. Mere seconds are filled with fear, connection and protection, and the moment is...

Sandia researcher Jeff Brinker elected fellow of American Academy of Arts and Sciences

June 27, 2018 • ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Jeff Brinker, Sandia National Laboratories fellow and University of New Mexico regents’ professor, has been elected fellow of the oldest learned society and independent policy research center in the United States: the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. The academy’s 1780 charter states its purpose is “to...
Brinker

Testing for Zika virus: there’s an app for that

March 20, 2017 • LIVERMORE, Calif. — Add rapid, mobile testing for Zika and other viruses to the list of things that smartphone technology is making possible. Researchers at Sandia National Laboratories have developed a smartphone-controlled, battery-operated diagnostic device that weighs under a pound, costs as little as $100 and can detect Zika, dengue...
Zika box

Super plants need super ROOTS

February 28, 2017 • ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Agriculture consumes about 80 percent of all U.S. water. Making fertilizers uses 1 to 2 percent of all the world’s energy each year. A new program hopes to develop better crops — super plants that are drought-resistant, use less fertilizer and remove more carbon dioxide from the...
Categories: Biology
Ronen Polsky, Ron Manginell, and Philip Miller hold tiny sensors surrounded by a warehouse of plants.

Two Sandia researchers receive Presidential Early Career awards

February 3, 2017 • ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Sandia researchers Stephanie Hansen and Alan Kruizenga are among 102 scientists and engineers to receive the 2017 Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE). The PECASE, established in 1996, is the highest honor bestowed by the U.S. government on outstanding scientists and engineers in the...
Stephanie Hansen

Sandia to evaluate if computational neuroscientists are on track

November 2, 2016 • ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. – Advanced computers may have beaten experts in chess and Go, but humans still excel at “one of these things is not like the others.” Even toddlers excel at generalization, extrapolation and pattern recognition. But a computer algorithm trained only on pictures of red apples can’t recognize that...
Categories: Biology, Computing
Sandia's MICrONS team examines a sample test object for IARPA's Machine Intelligence from Cortical Networks (MICrONS) project

Turning ubiquitous lignin into high-value chemicals

September 16, 2016 • LIVERMORE, Calif. — Abundant, chock full of energy and bound so tightly that the only way to release its energy is through combustion — lignin has frustrated scientists for years. With the help of an unusual soil bacteria, researchers at Sandia National Laboratories believe they now know how to crack...
lignin

Blowing bubbles to catch carbon dioxide

September 1, 2016 • ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. – Sandia National Laboratories and the University of New Mexico (UNM) have created a powerful new way to capture carbon dioxide from coal- and gas-fired electricity plants with a bubble-like membrane that harnesses the power of nature to reduce CO2 emissions efficiently. CO2 is a primary greenhouse gas,...
Susan Rempe with a soap bubble

Sandia storing information securely in DNA

July 11, 2016 • Sandia researchers explore a biologically inspired information storage system ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. – Experiments at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider generate 15 million gigabytes of data per year. That is a lot of digital data to inscribe on hard drives or beam up to the “cloud.” George Bachand, a Sandia National Laboratories...
Marlene and George Bachand show off their new method for encrypting and storing sensitive information in DNA

Lighting up disease-carrying mosquitoes

March 21, 2016 • LIVERMORE, Calif. — Mosquitoes are deadly efficient at spreading disease. Despite vaccines and efforts to eradicate the pesky insects, they continue to infect humans with feared diseases like Zika virus, malaria and West Nile virus. Gaining the upper hand on mosquitoes requires speed. Their life cycle is typically two weeks...
quasr

Algae raceway paves path from lab to real-world applications

February 2, 2016, Media Advisory • LIVERMORE, Calif.— In a twist of geometry, an oval can make a line. The new algae raceway testing facility at Sandia National Laboratories may be oval in shape, but it paves a direct path between laboratory research and solving the demand for clean energy. As the nation and California adopt...

Biological tools create nerve-like polymer network

August 24, 2015 • Crowdsurfing motor proteins create possible prosthetic interface ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Using a succession of biological mechanisms, Sandia National Laboratories researchers have created linkages of polymer nanotubes that resemble the structure of a nerve, with many out-thrust filaments poised to gather or send electrical impulses. “This is the first demonstration of...

Algae nutrient recycling is a triple win

August 19, 2015 • LIVERMORE, Calif. — Nitrogen and phosphate nutrients are among the biggest costs in cultivating algae for biofuels. Sandia molecular biologists Todd Lane and Ryan Davis have shown they can recycle about two-thirds of those critical nutrients, and aim to raise the recycling rate to close to 100 percent. Recycling nitrogen...

Sandia veterinarian helps make the world safer through livestock health and biosecurity

July 28, 2015 • ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Dr. Melissa Finley’s credibility was on the line as she worked, surrounded by skeptics, to save the life of a dehydrated calf in rural Afghanistan. As a woman and a foreigner she had to earn the trust of the villagers she was trying to help. “They had...

Tracing the evolution of a drug-resistant pathogen

July 15, 2015 • ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — To fight a pathogen that’s highly resistant to antibiotics, first understand how it gets that way. Klebsiella pneumoniae strains that carry a particular enzyme are known for “their ability to survive any antibiotics you throw at them,” said Corey Hudson of Sandia National Laboratories in California. Using...

Starving cancer instead of feeding it poison

May 13, 2015 • Simulation offers hope of killing cancers without sickening patients ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — A patent application for a drug that could destroy the deadly childhood disease known as acute lymphoblastic leukemia — and potentially other cancers as well — has been submitted by researchers at Sandia National Laboratories, the University of...
Susan Remke
Results 1–25 of 48