Projects

Characterization of an Expressed Bacterial Mn(II,III)-Oxidizing Multicopper Oxidase Complex and its Mn Oxide Products

Lead Institution

University of Washington

Principal Investigator

Bradley Tebo

Project type

Large-Scale EMSL Research

Microbial Mn(II) oxidation is an important environmental process that links the biogeochemical cycle of Mn with the cycling of C, N, P, and many trace metals and radionuclides. Microbes that oxidize…

Molecular Studies of Biological Ice Nuclei over the U. S. Plains States

Lead Institution

Northwest Research Associates

Principal Investigator

Cynthia Twohy

Project type

Large-Scale EMSL Research

Some types of biological aerosol particles such as bacteria, fungal spores and pollen are known to be potent ice nuclei that form ice in the atmosphere at relatively warm temperatures. However, which…

The Role of Anaerobic Microsites in Soil Carbon Storage

Lead Institution

Stanford University

Principal Investigator

Scott Fendorf

Project type

Large-Scale EMSL Research

The overarching goal of this project is to quantitatively place the importance of metabolic constraints in anaerobic microsites on the rate of soil organic matter (OM) oxidation, and thus advance our…

Tracing the Influence of Exudate Chemistry, Microbiology, and Mineralogy on the Decomposition and Stabilization of Root-Derived Carbon

Lead Institution

University of California, Berkeley

Principal Investigator

Mary Firestone

Project type

Large-Scale EMSL Research

Soils store more carbon (C) than the atmosphere and biosphere combined, yet the fundamental mechanisms that regulate this vast pool of C remain elusive. Plant roots are the dominant source of C in…

Investigating the Synergistic Interactions Between Anthropogenic Gas-phase Hydrophobic Organics and Biogenic SOA Particles

Lead Institution

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

Principal Investigator

ManishKumar Shrivastava

Project type

Large-Scale EMSL Research

We propose to investigate the molecular-level processes responsible for anthropogenic-biogenic interactions that enhance production and atmospheric lifetime of biogenic secondary organic aerosol …

Fundamental Understanding of Chemical Transformations at the Interface between Bimetallic Catalysts and Solvents

Lead Institution

Washington State University

Principal Investigator

Yong Wang

Project type

Large-Scale EMSL Research

Production of biofuels from lignocellulosic biomass, a renewable resource, can play a significant role in achieving goals of long term sustainability for the current energy infrastructure while…

Novel NMR Approaches for Detecting Methane/Enzyme Interactions and Biochemical Transformations in Vivo and in Vitro

Lead Institution

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Principal Investigator

Steven Yannone

Project type

Large-Scale EMSL Research

Identifying alternative transportation fuels and reducing atmospheric greenhouse gasses are critical global challenges and central aspects of DOE missions. Methane is an abundant energy source in the…

Control of methane and carbon dioxide emissions by sulfur biogeochemistry in terrestrial ecosystems

Lead Institution

Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory

Principal Investigator

John Cliff

Project type

Large-Scale EMSL Research

Freshwater wetlands are responsible for 40% of the methane emissions worldwide. Despite very low amounts of ambient sulfate, these ecosystems often support high rates of sulfate reduction, rivaling…

In planta colocalization and induction of gene expression in wood-degrading fungi

Lead Institution

University of Minnesota

Principal Investigator

Jonathan Schilling

Project type

Large-Scale EMSL Research

Wood-degrading fungi make energy from nature’s most abundant yet most recalcitrant plant tissue.9 Their mechanisms have obvious bioenergy relevance, and the brown rot fungi we study accomplish this…

Understanding the ionic transport phenomena in high capacity and high voltage oxides for high-energy-density lithium-ion batteries

Lead Institution

Oak Ridge National Laboratory

Principal Investigator

Debasish Mohanty

Project type

Large-Scale EMSL Research

This project proposes the utilization of high resolution characterization techniques, namely Atom Probe Tomography (APT) and aberration corrected Transmission electron microscopy on high-voltage…

Analysis of Post-translational Modifications of endo-Glucanases using High Accuracy Mass Spectrometry

Lead Institution

Michigan State University

Principal Investigator

Jonathan Walton

Project type

Large-Scale EMSL Research

A critical step in the lignocellulosic biofuels pipeline is the extraction of fermentable sugars from plant biomass. Extracellular fungal enzymes are currently the most effective way of…

Does Chloroplast Thylakoid Membrane Organization Influence Desiccation Tolerance in Green Algae?

Lead Institution

Marine Biological Laboratory

Principal Investigator

Zoe Cardon

Project type

Large-Scale EMSL Research

A key step in the evolution and diversification of advanced life on Earth was the transition from aquatic to terrestrial habitats. Organisms making the leap from water to land faced high light levels…

AMANZI - A New Community-Based High-Performance Code for Reactive Transport Modeling: Deployment for BER Science Applications

Lead Institution

Los Alamos National Laboratory

Principal Investigator

John Moulton

Project type

Large-Scale EMSL Research

Advancing predictive models of complex environmental systems, such as the Earth's subsurface and terrestrial ecosystems, requires that high-performance computational software and hardware be…

Nitrogen fixation in Populus: Identification and localization of the key diazotrophs in planta

Lead Institution

University of Washington

Principal Investigator

Sharon Doty

Project type

FICUS Research

Poplar (Populus) trees are an early successional pioneer plant species able to colonize nutrient-limited, cobble-dominated riparian zones. Native poplar has a diverse microbiota including strains…

Fluorescence-based cell sorting and targeted proteomic analysis of active methane-oxidizing syntrophic consortia from environmental samples

Lead Institution

California Institute of Technology

Principal Investigator

Victoria Orphan

Project type

FICUS Research

Determining the links between phylogenetically identified microorganisms with their metabolic activity and function in complex natural ecosystems has been a long-standing challenge in microbial…

Building the phage-host-environment interaction data to scale from genes-to-ecosystems: Towards predictive modeling of wild microbial and viral community dynamics

Lead Institution

University of Michigan

Principal Investigator

Melissa Duhaime

Project type

FICUS Research

Ocean microbes and viruses are now at the forefront of Earth System studies. The enormous numbers of ocean viruses (typically >10^5 ml-1, usually ten for every microbial cell) are driving…

Specialized Ribosomes: A New Frontier in Gene Regulation

Lead Institution

Texas A&M University

Principal Investigator

Deborah Bell-Pedersen

Project type

FICUS Research

A longstanding view in molecular biology is that all the ribosomes in a cell function identically. Our recent preliminary data, and those of others, challenge this dogma, and instead support the…

A Rhizosphere-Scale Investigation of the Relationship Between Plant Productivity and Methane Emissions from Wetlands

Lead Institution

University of Washington

Principal Investigator

Rebecca Neumann

Project type

FICUS Research

The proposed project will advance understanding of the response of methane production and methane oxidation to changes in plant productivity so that modeled representations of these processes and…

Integrated Omics Analyses of a Populus Pedigree for Crop Improvement

Lead Institution

Oak Ridge National Laboratory

Principal Investigator

Chongle Pan

Project type

FICUS Research

Populus is a DOE flagship plant for biofuel biomass production. Improving Populus as a feedstock crop is a major focus of DOE Bioenergy Research Centers (BRCs) and many academic laboratories. Here,…

Mechanisms of Fe(II)-Catalyzed Transformation of Fe(III)-(Oxyhydr)oxides

Lead Institution

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

Principal Investigator

Kevin Rosso

Project type

Large-Scale EMSL Research

Interaction of aqueous Fe(II) with major Fe(III)-oxides and oxyhydroxides yields the enigmatic catalytically reactive "sorbed Fe(II)" species and apparent facile recrystallization of even…