LIVERMORE, Calif. — Using a simple concept and a patented Sandia sensor that detects radioactive materials, a team at Sandia National Laboratories has developed a patch to stop damage to healthy tissue during proton radiotherapy, one of the best tools to target certain cancerous tumors. “This is an important need, especially among pediatric patients,” said […]
Category Archives: Bioscience / Medical Research
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Wearable sensor to monitor ‘last line of defense’ antibiotic
October 3, 2023 – 5:00 am
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Since the discovery of penicillin in 1928, bacteria have evolved numerous ways to evade or outright ignore the effects of antibiotics. Thankfully, healthcare providers have an arsenal of infrequently used antibiotics that are still effective against otherwise resistant strains of bacteria. Researchers at Sandia National Laboratories have combined earlier work on painless […]
A more holistic and efficient way of testing PPE
August 2, 2023 – 5:00 am
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — A team at Sandia National Laboratories has developed a faster and more comprehensive way of testing personal protective equipment, or PPE. The basic principle: modeling a device to fit the human form and human behavior. When COVID-19 hit, PPE testing became an urgent need. In March 2020, when the country went into […]
Silicon nose: Small sensor ‘smells’ incipient seizures
June 20, 2023 – 5:00 am
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — In people with epilepsy, seizure-alert dogs can smell small changes in body chemistry and warn of an impending seizure an hour or more before it occurs. Inspired by this feat of nature, a team of researchers has sniffed out a way to replicate the ability with technology. Sandia National Laboratories and research […]
Burping bacteria: Identifying Arctic microbes that produce greenhouse gases
October 17, 2022 – 5:00 am
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — As greenhouse gases bubble up across the rapidly thawing Arctic, Sandia National Laboratories researchers are trying to identify other trace gases from soil microbes that could shed some light on what is occurring biologically in melting permafrost in the Arctic. Sandia bioengineer Chuck Smallwood and his team recently spent five days collecting […]
Truman and Hruby 2022 fellows explore their positions
March 17, 2022 – 5:00 am
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Postdoctoral researchers who are designated Truman and Hruby fellows experience Sandia National Laboratories differently from their peers. Appointees to the prestigious fellowships are given the latitude to pursue their own ideas, rather than being trained by fitting into the research plans of more experienced researchers. To give wings to this process, the […]
Common ‘Core’: Using molecular fragments to detect deadly opioids
December 15, 2021 – 7:25 am
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Researchers at Sandia National Laboratories have developed a method to detect trace amounts of synthetic opioids. They plan to combine their approach with miniaturized sensors to create a hand-portable instrument easily used by law enforcement agents for efficient detection in the field. Fentanyl is a fast-acting, opioid-based pain reliever that is 80 […]
Neutralizing antibodies for emerging viruses
December 14, 2021 – 5:00 am
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 viral infection. Traditionally used to […]
Sandia Labs wins seven R&D 100 Awards and two specialty honors
December 1, 2021 – 5:00 am
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Competing in an international pool of universities, corporations and government labs, inventions from Sandia National Laboratories captured seven R&D 100 Awards (one in conjunction with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory) this year, as well as two special awards for green technology and corporate responsibility. Independent panels of judges selected projects to represent […]
Mimicking mother nature: New membrane to make fresh water
September 27, 2021 – 5:00 am
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Scientists at Sandia National Laboratories and their collaborators have developed a new membrane, whose structure was inspired by a protein from algae, for electrodialysis that could be used to provide fresh water for farming and energy production. The team shared their membrane design in a paper published recently in the scientific journal […]
Reusable respirator could ease COVID-19 medical mask shortages
April 1, 2021 – 5:00 am
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Many medical professionals and other essential, front-line workers have struggled for the past year with persistent shortages of N95 masks. Soon, they might get relief from a Sandia National Laboratories invention — a comfortable, reusable, sterilizable respirator that could ease demand during current or future health crises. Sandia has filed for patent […]
Sandia helps safeguard biological data threatened during COVID-19 pandemic
October 6, 2020 – 5:00 am
LIVERMORE, Calif. — A partnership between Sandia National Laboratories and the Boston firm BioBright LLC to improve the security of synthetic biology equipment has become more relevant after the United States and others issued warnings that hackers were using the COVID-19 pandemic to increase their activities. “In the past decade, genomics and synthetic biology have […]
Finding COVID-19 needles in a coronavirus haystack
July 14, 2020 – 5:00 am
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — COVID-19 researchers the world over face a daunting task of sifting through tens of thousands of existing coronavirus studies, looking for commonalities or data that might help in their urgent biomedical investigations. To accelerate the filtering of relevant information, Sandia National Laboratories has assembled a combination of data mining, machine-learning algorithms and […]
Hospitals, manufacturers partner with Sandia amid high demand for medical-grade masks
June 22, 2020 – 5:00 am
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Sandia National Laboratories is teaming with local hospitals and medical device manufacturers to increase the availability of respirator masks for health care workers. “We’re helping local medical device manufacturers test materials they are using to make medical-grade masks, and we’re helping local hospitals by evaluating methods they’ve developed to clean N95 masks […]
Sandia scientists search for genetic bullet to battle COVID-19
April 29, 2020 – 1:15 pm
LIVERMORE, Calf. — Two researchers at Sandia National Laboratories are using genetic resequencing tools to find a way to stop the COVID-19 pandemic in its tracks. Biochemist Joe Schoeniger and virologist Oscar Negrete are working on genetically engineering a deployable antiviral countermeasure for COVID-19 using CRISPR-based technology. “The goal is to find new ‘reloadable’ countermeasures […]