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...
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Preventing collateral damage in cancer treatment
October 23, 2023 • 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,...
Wearable sensor to monitor ‘last line of defense’ antibiotic
October 3, 2023 • 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...
Categories: Bioscience / Medical Research, Materials Science
Topics: antibiotics, microneedles
A more holistic and efficient way of testing PPE
August 2, 2023, Media Advisory • 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,...
Silicon nose: Small sensor ‘smells’ incipient seizures
June 20, 2023 • 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....
Categories: Bioscience / Medical Research
Burping bacteria: Identifying Arctic microbes that produce greenhouse gases
October 17, 2022 • 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...
Categories: Bioscience / Medical Research, Climate Change
Truman and Hruby 2022 fellows explore their positions
March 17, 2022 • 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...
Common ‘Core’: Using molecular fragments to detect deadly opioids
December 15, 2021 • 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...
Categories: Bioscience / Medical Research, Homeland security
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 r…
Sandia Labs wins seven R&D 100 Awards and two specialty honors
December 1, 2021 • 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...
Mimicking mother nature: New membrane to make fresh water
September 27, 2021 • 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...
Reusable respirator could ease COVID-19 medical mask shortages
April 1, 2021, Media Advisory • 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 helps safeguard biological data threatened during COVID-19 pandemic
October 6, 2020 • 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,...
Finding COVID-19 needles in a coronavirus haystack
July 14, 2020, Media Advisory • 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...
Hospitals, manufacturers partner with Sandia amid high demand for medical-grade masks
June 22, 2020 • 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...
Sandia scientists search for genetic bullet to battle COVID-19
April 29, 2020 • 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...
Categories: Bioscience / Medical Research, Coronavirus
Sandia-designed kits increase amount, type of breathing machines available for COVID-19
April 23, 2020 • ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — In less than a month, Sandia National Laboratories converted 100 respiratory machines New Mexico hospitals already had on hand into machines that can safely be used as ventilators to help treat patients with severe cases of COVID-19. Non-invasive ventilators that use masks instead of tubes, BiPAP and...
Patient-friendly brain imager gets green light toward first prototype
March 10, 2020 • ALBUQUERQUE, N.M — It might not start a fashion trend, but Sandia National Laboratories is designing a wearable brain imager. The National Institutes of Health has granted Sandia $6 million to build the prototype medical device that would make magnetoencephalography (MEG) — a type of noninvasive brain scan — more...
Can the US make bioweapons obsolete?
March 9, 2020 • LIVERMORE, Calif. — As the threats posed by bioterrorism and naturally occurring infectious disease grow and evolve in the modern era, there is a rising potential for broad negative impacts on human health, economic stability and global security. To protect the nation from these dangers, Sandia National Laboratories has partnered...
Sandia establishes collaborative research facility for low-temperature plasmas
December 20, 2019 • ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Sandia National Laboratories is setting up a collaborative facility to help researchers worldwide study low-temperature plasmas, the most pervasive state of matter in the universe. The 5-year, $5.5 million project, called the Sandia Low Temperature Plasma Research Facility, is sponsored by the Department of Energy’s Office of...
NM company secures funds, land for medical-isotope producing reactor using Sandia concept
November 21, 2019 • ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — A New Mexico company secured funding this year and located 240 acres of land in the southeastern corner of the state to build a small reactor that will exclusively produce medical isotopes. The concept was developed and licensed by Sandia National Laboratories to help establish a stable...
Heat it and read it
January 10, 2019 • LIVERMORE, Calif. — You’re sweating and feverish and have no idea why. Fortunately, Sandia National Laboratories scientists have a device that can pinpoint what’s wrong in less than an hour. Unlike most medical diagnostic devices which can perform only one type of test — either protein or nucleic acid tests...
Categories: Bioscience / Medical Research
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...
Categories: Biology, Bioscience / Medical Research
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...
Cutting it short
August 22, 2018 • LIVERMORE, Calif. — Gene editing technology could one day eliminate diseases currently considered incurable. Thanks to a new test developed by Sandia National Laboratories scientists, that day is closer to dawning. The protein responsible for cutting out disease-causing bits of DNA is not safe to leave in the body for...
Topics: CRISPR
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