Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory | Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory

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Accelerate your scientific discoveries.

Submit a proposal to access EMSL's world-class expertise and tools.

Functional and Systems Biology

Environmental Transformations and Interactions

Computing, Analytics, and Modeling

What can EMSL offer you?

State-of-the-art instruments and workflows • Computational data analysis and modeling • Specialized expertise

Proposal Calls

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EMSL will partner with researchers to help define shared methods and standards for evaluating the trustworthiness of autonomous biological experimentation workflows and compare results across systems

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EMSL will partner with the research community members to integrate high-resolution mass spectrometry, molecular simulation, and Super Intelligence–driven workflows to identify molecular structures and characterize metal binding, accelerating discovery in biodesign and recovery of critical minerals and materials.

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EMSL will partner with researchers to evaluate computational approaches for predicting metal-binding behavior, structure, and reactivity and help establish community benchmarks for emerging quantum-enabled molecular science workflows.

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EMSL will partner with research community members to integrate automated data processing, metabolic pathway visualization, predictive systems biology modeling, and Super Intelligence–driven analysis to identify, validate, and predict metabolic pathways that will explain the observed phenotype across diverse microbial conditions.

fungal proteins

This campaign aims to utilize biochemical and structural biology resources, both experimental and computational (including simulation, data analytics, and informatics), to accelerate the annotation of proteins of unknown function across the fungal kingdom.

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This campaign will use a coordinated multiomics approach to investigate the mechanisms of metal selectivity and interaction across diverse microbial strains, species, and experimental systems.

algae microbes

This campaign will use a coordinated multiomics approach to investigate the microbial pathways of diverse microbial strains, species, and experimental systems.

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Limited Scope proposals are short-term projects intended for proof-of-concept work or to conclude the remaining tasks required for manuscript publication.

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Review EMSL's proposal call opportunities, project timelines, and guidance. Learn about the different types of proposals and tips for submitting a successful proposal.

Latest News

Photo of leaders from the U.S. Department of Energy, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, and the Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory standing before a patch of soil, shovels in hand as they led the groundbreaking for EMSL's new Microbial Molecular Phenotyping Capability (M2PC) laboratory.

Microbial Molecular Phenotyping Capability (M2PC) to help strengthen American biotechnology leadership

Research Highlights

Functional and Systems Biology

Illustration depicting PETase molecules breaking down PET-plastic.

A new approach leverages a chemically diverse library of fluorogenic substrates to unmask hidden enzymatic functions in complex microbial communities

Computing, Analytics, and Modeling

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A multi-institutional team combined a physics-informed machine learning approach with established scientific models and data and validated that it accurately predicts the spatial distribution of chemical reactions involved in subsurface resource recovery

Environmental Transformations and Interactions

Photo of a cross section of several plants growing in soil and it displays roots below the surface of the soil

A new workflow enables spatially resolved analysis of both metabolites and proteins using different mass spectrometry modalities on the exact same tissue section, preserving true cell- and region-specific molecular information

Featured User Projects

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EMSL and University of Houston researchers developed a physics-informed machine learning framework that predicts how fluids and chemicals move underground, helping guide future critical mineral extraction strategies

Photo of UW-Madison PhD student Soni Ghimire standing in a lab setting, smiling at the camera.

Researchers from University of Wisconsin-Madison partnered with EMSL for new insights

Explore EMSL

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Embark on a virtual tour of our user facility! Explore the laboratories, hear from experts, and learn how our premier capabilities accelerate scientific discovery for the biological, environmental, and computing research communities.

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EMSL is a national user facility providing the global scientific community with shared resources to advance biological and environmental research at the molecular level.

User Program Services is here to assist throughout the proposal call and research processes. Learn more about available support and view a detailed scoring rubric for proposals.

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Instrument / Resource
Isotope Ratio Mass Spectrometry

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Instrument / Resource
Pyrolysis Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry

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Photo of Anaerobic Microbial Phenotyping Platform (AMP2) equipment.

Instrument / Resource
Anaerobic Microbial Phenotyping Platform (AMP2)

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Photo of researcher Dušan Veličković loading a sample into a MALDI-ScimaX mass spectrometer instrument.

Instrument / Resource
Mass Spectrometry Imaging

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