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Projects

As a scientific user facility, the Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory (EMSL) provides expertise, instrumentation, and resources to 250 projects each year. Current and past projects supported through a variety of EMSL user proposal avenues are publicly searchable on the EMSL website.  

Browse current and past research projects supported by the EMSL User Facility.

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  • Advanced search bar facilitates combining several of the facets with keywords

Project pages provide details including:

  • Research team and institution
  • The EMSL project DOI
  • Link to project data available in EMSL’s Data Portal
  • Project type
  • Projects beginning at or after given date.
    Projects ending at or before given date.

Imaging the Spatial Effects of Hydraulic Redistribution on Root Exudation

Lead Institution
University at Buffalo, State University of New York
Principal Investigator
Richard Marinos
Project type
Large-Scale EMSL Research
The overall aim of the proposed research is to understand how plant hydraulic redistribution (HR) changes root exudation of biomolecules to the rhizosphere. HR is the flux of water from wet soil to…

Microbial diversity, complexity, and dynamics within a ‘grass-to-glass’ profile at a late iron age archaeological site, and as a function of climatic variables

Lead Institution
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Principal Investigator
Carolyn Pearce
Project type
Large-Scale EMSL Research
We propose to systematically analyze the microbial consortia that are enriched on rock surfaces as a function of depth through a ‘grass-to-glass’ profile using samples obtained during the excavation…

Real-time detection of biogeochemical hotspots within saturated sediments

Lead Institution
Boise State University
Principal Investigator
Kevin Roche
Project type
Large-Scale EMSL Research
Saturated sediments are hotspots of biogeochemical reactivity in river corridors. High reactivity is promoted by the exchange of surface water and groundwater within the hyporheic zone, as well as by…

iTopS: integrative topological scores with functional molecular modeling

Lead Institution
University of Kansas Medical Center
Principal Investigator
Mihaela Sardiu
Project type
Large-Scale EMSL Research
The objective of this project is to produce a novel computational prototype to synthesize and visualize the structural models of higher-order protein complexes derived from the existing empirical…

Investigation of Copper Binding in A Metal-chelating Plant Protein

Lead Institution
Stanford Linear Accelerator Center
Principal Investigator
Ritimukta Sarangi
Project type
Large-Scale EMSL Research
Cellular metal chelation is a vital plant stress response mechanism that enables plants to survive in metal-polluted soils, which could be valuable in crop engineering for agricultural use and…

Visualizing the cellular and molecular bases underlying desiccation tolerance.

Lead Institution
University of Wisconsin, Madison
Principal Investigator
Marisa Otegui
Project type
Large-Scale EMSL Research
Organisms depend on water for survival. Understanding desiccation tolerance mechanisms is critical for the reproduction of grass bioenergy crops, whose pollen grains are dispersed by air and able to…

Epidermal plastid reprograming during microbial colonization

Lead Institution
University of Chicago
Principal Investigator
Jean Greenberg
Project type
Large-Scale EMSL Research
Plant epidermal cells serve as a barrier between them and their surroundings as well as key interaction interfaces between plants and beneficial microbes. Epidermal plastids of leaves and the small…

Assessing the selective bioweathering of minerals by fungi in soil ecosystems

Lead Institution
University of California, Davis
Principal Investigator
Rebecca Lybrand
Project type
Large-Scale EMSL Research
Rock weathering replenishes nutrients in soil, shapes geochemical carbon sequestration, and drives physical, chemical, and biological processes at a multitude of scales. Globally, lithology type and…

Physics-guided Machine Learning for Protein Modeling and Design

Lead Institution
University of Washington
Principal Investigator
Armita Nourmohammad
Project type
Large-Scale EMSL Research
Proteins are the machinery of life and are involved in many processes, from photosynthesis in plants to cellular communication in the brain. The physical arrangement of a protein’s amino acids…

Unraveling spatial and temporal dynamics of microbial necromass destabilization

Lead Institution
U.S. Geological Survey
Principal Investigator
Courtney Creamer
Project type
Large-Scale EMSL Research
Microbial necromass—or the extracellular and intracellular remains of dead microbes—can make up a significant portion of soil organic carbon and nitrogen. But a large quantity of necromass doesn’t…