Projects

PNNL Facilities Master Plan

Lead Institution

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

Principal Investigator

Michael Perkins

Project type

Exploratory Research

This project is to support the laboratories effort in planning future facilities at PNNL. I will be developing several architectural renderings to be use in public relations and engineering…

Fundamental Studies of Oxygen Storage Materials (Chuck Peden's BES Project - 26104)

Lead Institution

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

Principal Investigator

Charles Peden

Project type

Exploratory Research

The goal of this research is to fill a gap in the fundamental understanding of catalyst activity and durability with respect to the transient NOx reduction performance of automotive catalytic…

A new approach to protein folding by reducing dimensionality of protein conformational space

Lead Institution

Oak Ridge National Laboratory

Principal Investigator

Al Geist

Project type

Exploratory Research

The objectives of this proposal are to develop and implement an efficient method to address the problem of protein folding. Our approach is based on reducing the multi-scale and multi-dimensional…

Identification of the SecB residue that is labeled by methanethiosulfonate

Lead Institution

University of Missouri - Columbia

Principal Investigator

Linda Randall

Project type

Exploratory Research

Aim: To identify the residue of SecB that is labeled by methanethiosulfonate (MTSL), a stable nitroxide spin label. SecB, a small tetrameric cytosolic chaperone in E.coli, facilitates the export…

High-Field Dynamic Nuclear Polarization Technique for Probing the Cellular Structure of Polysaccharides and Lignin in Plants

Lead Institution

Michigan State University

Principal Investigator

Tuo Wang

Project type

Exploratory Research

The NMR Facility at EMSL is going to house the first commercial high-field (800 MHz/527 GHz) Dynamic Nuclear Polarization (DNP) system in the United States. This state-of-art instrument will allow us…

Evaluating viral activity and infection dynamics during wet-up of dry grassland soils

Lead Institution

University of California, Davis

Principal Investigator

Joanne Emerson

Project type

Exploratory Research

After months of dryness, the first heavy rainfall in Mediterranean climates drives a predictable pulse of CO2 emissions and soil microbial activity each year. Responsive microbial populations begin…

Controls on the Composition of Persistent Microbial-derived Organic Matter in Soil

Lead Institution

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

Principal Investigator

Kirsten Hofmockel

Project type

Exploratory Research

Current estimates suggest that soils contain 1.5 x 10^12 tons of carbon, or roughly three times more carbon than the atmosphere, and represent a giant reservoir for potential greenhouse gas emission…

Elucidating aromatic catabolic pathways in white-rot fungi

Lead Institution

National Renewable Energy Laboratory

Principal Investigator

Davinia Salvachua Rodriguez

Project type

Exploratory Research

Lignin is a heterogeneous aromatic polymer found in the cell walls of terrestrial plants and accounts for 30% of the organic carbon in the biosphere. White-rot fungi (WRF) are unquestionably the most…

Phosphorus and Carbon Cycling Directed by Spatial Plasticity in Root Exudation

Lead Institution

Michigan State University

Principal Investigator

James Moran

Project type

Exploratory Research

Plant root exudates provide a significant carbon (C) source for rhizosphere microbial communities. In return, these communities help mobilize nutrients needed for plant growth. For instance,…

Lithologic controls on rock-derived nutrient cycling and soil organic carbon storage in perhumid temperate coastal rainforest

Lead Institution

University of Nebraska Omaha

Principal Investigator

Ashlee Dere

Project type

Exploratory Research

Mineral weathering is an important supplier of plant essential nutrients and influences soil carbon sequestration yet the drivers and rates of mineral transformation and soil formation are still…

Characterizing Key Factors That Influence Recalcitrance of Lignocellulosic Biomass Deconstruction via in-situ liquid IR SNOM Approach

Lead Institution

Washington State University Tri-Cities

Principal Investigator

Bin Yang

Project type

Exploratory Research

Call Topic: This proposal is in response to Functional and Systems Biology on EMSL’s suite of surface science capabilities are ideal for chemical imaging organic matter mineral interactions…

Model systems for understanding potassium transformations in fungal biomass

Lead Institution

Stanford Linear Accelerator Center

Principal Investigator

Ritimukta Sarangi

Project type

Exploratory Research

Soil biota plays an important role in nutrient cycling processes through breakdown of nutrients from soil minerals or organic matter and rebuilding new nutrient structures for storage within their…

Diel dynamics and physical interactions of phototrophic isolates from a hot spring microbial mat

Lead Institution

Carnegie Institution for Science

Principal Investigator

Devaki Bhaya

Project type

Exploratory Research

The microbial mats in the hot springs of Yellowstone National Park (YNP) are composed of diverse thermophilic microbial communities that have evolved to optimize sharing and utilization of scarce…

The role of structural and solvation dynamics of matrix proteins on apatite mineralization

Lead Institution

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

Principal Investigator

Jinhui Tao

Project type

Exploratory Research

Our goal is to identify the spatial distributions, solvent and structural dynamics of matrix proteins (such as amelogenin, collagen) with joint ultrahigh spatial resolution as well as structural…

Machine Learning Assisted Classification of Ca-Organic Matter Complexation Using X-ray Spectroscopies

Lead Institution

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

Principal Investigator

Niranjan Govind

Project type

Exploratory Research

Soils and sediments host large stores of organic carbon, which can be released to the atmosphere upon mineralization. Ca has the potential to play a key role in preventing mineralization of this…

Rhodospirillum rubrum metabolic state during conversion of CO2 to ethylene

Lead Institution

The Ohio State University

Principal Investigator

Justin North

Project type

Exploratory Research

Ethylene (C2H4) is an essential plant hormone and is the chemical building block for nearly all plastics, detergents, and coolants. More ethylene is synthesized than any other industrial compound (…

Does microbial consumption of plant litter produce diverse pools of dissolved organic matter?

Lead Institution

Cornell University

Principal Investigator

Johannes Lehmann

Project type

Exploratory Research

Microbial consumption and transformation of plant litter is becoming a widely recognized control on soil organic matter (SOM) persistence. Although the reasons for the increased resiliency of…

Acquiring highly resolved root images of a cereal introgression line with enhanced root growth, and performance under low nitrogen stress by X-ray Computed Tomography

Lead Institution

University of California, Davis

Principal Investigator

Diane Beckles

Project type

Exploratory Research

The aim of this work is to obtain unambiguous data on the root specific architecture of a wheat introgression line 99 that has greater below ground biomass, and outperforms the cultivated parental…

Novel X-ray Interferometry Imaging of Plant Root Systems

Lead Institution

Louisiana State University

Principal Investigator

Joyoni Dey

Project type

Exploratory Research

Plants have mechanisms to overcome abiotic and biotic stresses. One of the main plant parts to adjust to available resources for growth are roots. Observing the changes in distribution of roots (RSA)…

Exploring oxalate metabolism and C transfer in bacterial-fungal interactions in the context of a soil carbon-storing biogeochemical process

Lead Institution

Los Alamos National Laboratory

Principal Investigator

Patrick Chain

Project type

Exploratory Research

Bacterial-fungal interactions (BFI) in the rhizosphere impart a myriad of beneficial functions to plant and soil health as well as play important roles in biogeochemical cycling in soils. However,…