EMSL, PNNL Break Ground on First-of-Its-Kind Autonomous Laboratory for Biosciences

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

Karyn Hede | October 26, 2026

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. — Pacific Northwest National Laboratory Director Deb Gracio, third from left, leads the ceremonial groundbreaking for EMSL's Microbial Molecular Phenotyping Capability (M2PC). *(Photo by Eddie Pablo, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory)*

RICHLAND, Wash. — The Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory (EMSL), a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science national user facility at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), has broken ground on a new research facility that will be one of the world's largest autonomous biosciences laboratories, and the first that will be available to the broader scientific community.

The 30,800-square-foot Microbial Molecular Phenotyping Capability (M2PC) is an expansion of EMSL designed to transform how we could put microbes to work for American manufacturing competitiveness, human health, adversary threat detection and response, food security, and next-generation energy systems.

Photo of PNNL Director Deb Gracio standing at a podium in front of a construction fence. — PNNL Director Deb Gracio spoke at the M2PC groundbreaking event. (Photo by Eddie Pablo, PNNL)

Leaders from DOE, EMSL, and PNNL, as well as government officials and key research collaborators, gathered on October 20, 2026, to celebrate the start of construction, which is expected to take about two years.

"M2PC will bring together PNNL's strengths in microbial science, automation, and computing to dramatically accelerate our understanding of what microbes can do and how we put those capabilities to work for the nation," PNNL Director Deb Gracio said at the groundbreaking event.

Progress at the speed of biology

M2PC will house more than 100 connected, automated instruments designed and supplied by EMSL and PNNL industry partner Ginkgo Bioworks. Working together as a single integrated system, this array will be programmable via customized software to handle time-consuming tasks, including growing microbes and preparing samples, measuring how microbes grow and behave under precisely controlled conditions, and running analyses to connect those observable traits (called phenotypes) to the molecular machinery inside the cells that controls them.

Photo of DOE Office of Science Biological and Environmental Research Program Associate Director Dorothy Koch standing in front of construction equipment, speaking into a microphone. — DOE Office of Science Biological and Environmental Research Program Associate Director Dorothy Koch shared her vision for M2PC. (Photo by Eddie Pablo, PNNL)

By automating these steps, M2PC will enable researchers to test more ideas, learn from results, and guide subsequent experiments.

Dorothy Koch, associate director for the DOE Office of Science's Biological and Environmental Research (BER) program, shared her vision for the facility at the groundbreaking event.

"M2PC will accelerate biological discovery and design and take on the mega-grand challenge of how complex microbial systems function at the genomic level both in the lab and under a range of environmental conditions," she said.

This approach will dramatically accelerate the process of understanding microbial behavior and identifying promising biological functions.

Interior illustration of the Microbial Molecular Phenotyping Capability (M2PC). Six rows display categories of processing and analysis, of which includes phenotyping analysis, strain engineering, media prep, sample prep, functional testing, and cell culturing. — M2PC will provide an integrated suite of automated phenotyping instrumentation and analytical tools needed by the scientific community to close knowledge gaps and open endless opportunity for emergent science to accelerate discovery. (Illustration courtesy of Ginkgo and EMSL)

Why focus on microbes?

Humans have benefited from bacteria, yeast, and other single-celled organisms since the dawn of civilization. Because of their sheer numbers, they collectively represent the single largest body of biological diversity and function on Earth and remain among the most powerful potential tools in modern science. Through human ingenuity and M2PC's speed, researchers hope to efficiently produce bioproducts, create new materials, clean up contamination, and help secure the nation's energy supplies.

But understanding what each microbe can actually accomplish and how to put those abilities to work economically has traditionally taken years of painstaking laboratory effort.

Advancing DOE's Genesis Mission

Visual mockup of EMSL's in-development Microbial Molecular Phenotyping Capability facility extension, also known as M2PC. — M2PC will be available to the research community in 2029 through EMSL's competitive proposal calls. (Image courtesy Perkins & Will)

M2PC will serve as a flagship component of DOE's Genesis Mission, the Department's directive to modernize and accelerate American science through autonomous, Super-Intelligence-driven laboratories. M2PC is funded by the DOE Office of Science's BER program and builds directly on EMSL's and PNNL's long-standing strengths in microbial phenotyping, systems biology, data analytics, and software development.

The laboratory's expertise in designing biological systems, measuring microbial traits, analyzing the full suite of molecules inside cells, integrating many types of data, and building computational models helped inform the design of the facility. M2PC will also advance the ambitious scientific goal of building and testing computer models that can predict and program the behavior of living systems.

Photo of PNNL Associate Lab Director Douglas Mans standing in front of construction equipment, speaking with members of the press. — PNNL Associate Laboratory Director Douglas Mans stressed the importance of workforce development at the M2PC groundbreaking. (Photo by Eddie Pablo, PNNL)

These capabilities will help lay the scientific foundation for advances in biotechnology, including the development of new materials, energy technologies and approaches to critical materials recovery.

"PNNL has a long history of developing scientific talent and partnering with universities and educational institutions to train and deploy the next-generation workforce at the forefront of advancing science," said Associate Laboratory Director for Integrated Discovery Science Douglas Mans, whose directorate helps administer EMSL on behalf of DOE. "M2PC will allow us to build on that foundation, giving students and early-career researchers experience with technologies that will increasingly shape and become the next frontier in scientific research."

Fueling a $4 trillion biotechnology industry

While M2PC is a research investment, the payoff is expected to extend well beyond the laboratory. Discoveries enabled by M2PC are expected to accelerate the rapidly growing industrial biotechnology industry, which has been valued at $4 trillion.

Open to the nation's scientists

Animated clip of various Department of Energy, PNNL, and EMSL leaders digging shovels into soil and lightly tossing it.

When M2PC opens its doors in 2029, it will transform EMSL into a premier hub for next-generation microbial research. Like other EMSL instruments and resources, M2PC will be available to the broader research community at no cost to the submitting researchers through EMSL's competitive proposal calls. Researchers from universities, industry, and other national laboratories across the country will be invited to submit proposals that address the nation's most pressing scientific challenges.

With shovels now turning soil, DOE, EMSL, and PNNL have taken the first steps toward building the future of programmable biology, where discoveries that once took a career can happen in a year.

M2PC groundbreaking ceremony photos

Explore the embedded Flickr album below. (Photos by Eddie Pablo and Maegan Murray, PNNL)

Can't see the embed above? View the album on Flickr.

Minor edits to this article were provided by Linda Isakson and Joey Wohlhieter (PNNL) to reflect its appearance on EMSL's website. View original article on pnnl.gov.