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At least 379 records · Page 21
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2023

High flux novel polymeric membrane for renal applications

Biocompatibility and the ability to mediate the appropriate flux of ions, urea, and uremic toxins between blood and dialysate components are key parameters for membranes used in dialysis. Oxone-mediated TEMPO-oxidized cellulose nanomaterials have been demonstrated to be excellent additives in the production and tunability of ultrafiltration and dialysis membranes. In the present study, nanocellulose ionic liquid membranes (NC-ILMs) were tested in vitro and ex vivo. An increase in flux of up to two orders of magnitude was observed with increased rejection (about 99.6%) of key proteins compared to that of polysulfone (PSf) and other commercial membranes. NC-ILMs have a sharper molecular weight cut-off than other phase inversion polymeric membranes, allowing for high throughput of urea and a uremic toxin surrogate and limited passage of proteins in dialysis applications. Superior anti-fouling properties were also observed for the NC-ILMs, including a > 5-h operation time with no systemic anticoagulation in blood samples. Finally, NC-ILMs were found to be biocompatible in rat ultrafiltration and dialysis experiments, indicating their potential clinical utility in dialysis and other blood filtration applications. These superior properties may allow for a new class of membranes for use in a wide variety of industrial applications, including the treatment of patients suffering from renal disease.

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2023

The First Virtual Human Global Summit: Prepublication Meeting Report

This is the prepublication report for the First Virtual Human Global Summit held in October 2023. Organized collaboratively by Frederick National Laboratory for Cancer Research, Brookhaven National Laboratory, University College London, and Eviden, the 2023 Virtual Human Global Summit convened global thought leaders to bring together multiple perspectives across domains and organizations. The intent of the Summit was to foster collaboration among key leaders internationally whose combined efforts are required to advance patient-focused precision medicine through medical digital twins. Participants represented cancer and biomedical research, industry, infrastructure, clinical research, community health, non-profit organizations, government, and general public interests. The Summit included over 80 attendees across three continents including native American tribes. The Summit was held to share insights about the state of the art for medical digital twins, provide motivating opportunities and identify key challenges along the path to improved health and wellness through virtual human models and personalized digital twins. The Summit included sessions emphasizing the primary areas of research, infrastructure, clinical application, government support, and adoption/sustainability. Several examples of digital twins were referenced or mentioned through the course of the Summit including digital twin approaches in cancer, radiation oncology, molecular scale digital twins, diabetes, and sepsis. The summit report includes perspectives on the current state, challenges and guidance across research, infrastructure, clinical translation and community adoption, as well as multiple key insights from industry perspectives.

99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS↗
DOE OSTI2025

BioPortal: an open community resource for sharing, searching, and utilizing biomedical ontologies

Abstract BioPortal (https://bioportal.bioontology.org) is the world’s most comprehensive repository of biomedical ontologies. It provides infrastructure for finding, sharing, searching, and utilizing biomedical ontologies. Launched in 2005, BioPortal now includes 1549 ontologies (1182 of them public). Its open, freely accessible website enables anyone (i) to browse the ontology library, (ii) to search for terms across ontologies, (iii) to browse mappings between terms, (iv) to see popularity ratings and recommendations on which ontologies are most relevant to their use cases, (v) to annotate text with ontology terms, (vi) to submit an ontology, and (vii) to request ontology changes. The library of ontologies can be accessed programmatically via a REST application programming interface (API). Recent enhancements include a BioPortal knowledge graph that integrates knowledge from multiple ontologies; a unified data model for interoperability with other knowledge sources; ontology popularity ratings and recommendations for relevant ontologies; and the ability to request ontology changes via a simple user interface that automatically converts user change requests to GitHub Pull Requests that specify the edits that will be made to the ontology upon approval.

Vendetti, Jennifer↗
DOE OSTI2026

SmileyLlama: modifying large language models for directed chemical space exploration

Here we show that large language models (LLMs) can be transformed via supervised fine-tuning of engineered prompts into SmileyLlama for exploring the chemical space of drug molecules. We benchmark SmileyLlama against pretrained LLMs and chemical language models trained from scratch for generating valid and novel drug-like molecules, and use direct preference optimization to both improve SmileyLlama’s adherence to a prompt and as part of the iMiner reinforcement learning framework to predict molecules with optimized three-dimensional conformations and high binding affinity to drug targets. By training an LLM to speak directly as a chemical language model, while retaining most of its natural language capabilities, we show that SmileyLlama can reliably generate molecules with user-specified properties rather than acting only as a chatbot with knowledge of chemistry or as a virtual assistant. While SmileyLlama is geared toward drug discovery, the supervised fine-tuning/direct preference optimization/LLM framework can be extended to other chemical, biological and materials applications.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗
DOE OSTI2025

The Journal of Open Source Software (JOSS): Bringing Open-Source Software Practices to the Scholarly Publishing Community for Authors, Reviewers, Editors, and Publishers

Open-source software (OSS) is a critical component of open science, but contributions to the OSS ecosystem are systematically undervalued in the current academic system. The Journal of Open Source Software (JOSS) contributes to addressing this by providing a venue (that is itself free, diamond open access, and all open-source, built in a layered structure using widely available elements/services of the scholarly publishing ecosystem) for publishing OSS, run in the style of OSS itself. A particularly distinctive element of JOSS is that it uses open peer review in a collaborative, iterative format, unlike most publishers. Additionally, all the components of the process—from the reviews to the papers to the software that is the subject of the papers to the software that the journal runs—are open. We describe JOSS’s history and its peer review process using an editorial bot, and we present statistics gathered from JOSS’s public review history on GitHub showing an increasing number of peer reviewed papers each year. We discuss the new JOSSCast and use it as a data source to understand reasons why interviewed authors decided to publish in JOSS. JOSS’s process differs significantly from traditional journals, which has impeded JOSS’s inclusion in indexing services such as Web of Science. In turn, this discourages researchers within certain academic systems, such as Italy’s, which emphasize the importance of Web of Science and/or Scopus indexing for grant applications and promotions. JOSS is a fully diamond open-access journal with a cost of around US$\$$5 per paper for the 401 papers published in 2023. The scalability of running JOSS with volunteers and financing JOSS with grants and donations is discussed.

96 KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT AND PRESERVATION↗
DOE OSTI2023

Accelerator-Based Production of Scandium Radioisotopes for Applications in Prostate Cancer: Toward Building a Pipeline for Rapid Development of Novel Theranostics

In the field of nuclear medicine, the β + -emitting 43 Sc and β - -emitting 47 Sc are promising candidates in cancer diagnosis and targeted radionuclide therapy (TRT) due to their favorable decay schema and shared pharmacokinetics as a true theranostic pair. Additionally, scandium is a group-3 transition metal (like 177 Lu) and exhibits affinity for DOTA-based chelators, which have been studied in depth, making the barrier to implementation lower for 43/47 Sc than for other proposed true theranostics. Before 43/47 Sc can see widespread pre-clinical evaluation, however, an accessible production methodology must be established and each isotope’s radiolabeling and animal imaging capabilities studied with a widely utilized tracer. As such, a simple means of converting an 18 MeV biomedical cyclotron to support solid targets and produce 43 Sc via the 42 Ca(d,n) 43 Sc reaction has been devised, exhibiting reasonable yields. The Nat Ti(γ,p) 47 Sc reaction is also investigated along with the successful implementation of chemical separation and purification methods for 43/47 Sc. The conjugation of 43/47 Sc with PSMA-617 at specific activities of up to 8.94 MBq/nmol and the subsequent imaging of LNCaP-ENZaR tumor xenografts in mouse models with both 43/47 Sc-PSMA-617 are also presented.

62 RADIOLOGY AND NUCLEAR MEDICINE↗
DOE OSTI2024

Clocking out and letting go to unleash green biotech applications in a photosynthetic host

Cyanobacteria are photosynthetic bacteria whose gene expression patterns are globally regulated by their circadian (daily) clocks. Due to their ability to use sunlight as their energy source, they are also attractive hosts for “green” production of pharmaceuticals, renewable fuels, and chemicals. However, despite the application of traditional genetic tools such as the identification of strong promoters to enhance the expression of heterologous genes, cyanobacteria have lagged behind other microorganisms such as Escherichia coli and yeast as economically efficient cell factories. The previous approaches have ignored large-scale constraints within cyanobacterial metabolic networks on transcription, predominantly the pervasive control of gene expression by the circadian (daily) clock. Here, we show that reprogramming gene expression by releasing circadian repressor elements in the transcriptional regulatory pathways coupled with inactivation of the central oscillating mechanism enables a dramatic enhancement of expression in cyanobacteria of heterologous genes encoding both catalytically active enzymes and polypeptides of biomedical significance.

Science & Technology - Other Topics↗
DOE OSTI2020

Fully stretchable active-matrix organic light-emitting electrochemical cell array

Intrinsically and fully stretchable active-matrix-driven displays are an important element to skin electronics that can be applied to many emerging fields, such as wearable electronics, consumer electronics and biomedical devices. Here, we show for the first time a fully stretchable active-matrix-driven organic light-emitting electrochemical cell array. Briefly, it is comprised of a stretchable light-emitting electrochemical cell array driven by a solution-processed, vertically integrated stretchable organic thin-film transistor active-matrix, which is enabled by the development of chemically-orthogonal and intrinsically stretchable dielectric materials. Our resulting active-matrix-driven organic light-emitting electrochemical cell array can be readily bent, twisted and stretched without affecting its device performance. When mounted on skin, the array can tolerate to repeated cycles at 30% strain. This work demonstrates the feasibility of skin-applicable displays and lays the foundation for further materials development.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2025

dCache: The Storage System of Choice for Data-Intensive Applications

The ever-increasing volumes of data produced by modern scientific facilities like EuXFEL and LHC put significant stress on data management infrastructure operated by laboratories and research centers. The challenges to be addressed span the entire data life cycle, from ingest and efficient data analysis to long-term preservation, typically involving large tape libraries. dCache, a storage system developed in collaboration between the Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron (DESY), Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, and Nordic e-Infrastructure Collaboration (NeIC), is designed to manage a large number of disk servers and to facilitate transparent data migration to and from archival storage. Its multifaceted approach offers a unified method to support a variety of scientific use cases with the same storage infrastructure, including high-throughput data ingest, data sharing over wide area networks, efficient access from HPC clusters, and long-term data preservation on tertiary storage. Initially developed for high energy physics (HEP) experiments, dCache is now used by various scientific communities, including astrophysics, biomedical research, and life sciences, each having specific requirements. This paper presents architecture, deployment strategies, performance and scalability enhancements, and recent advancements in dCache addressing the needs of scientific communities. Finally, we touch on the development and release process, ensuring the software’s high quality.

DCache↗
DOE OSTI2022

Optical recognition of constructs using hyperspectral imaging and detection (ORCHID)

Abstract Challenges to deep sample imaging have necessitated the development of special techniques such as spatially offset optical spectroscopy to collect signals that have travelled through several layers of tissue. However, these techniques provide only spectral information in one dimension (i.e., depth). Here, we describe a general and practical method, referred to as Optical Recognition of Constructs Using Hyperspectral Imaging and Detection (ORCHID). The sensing strategy integrates (1) the spatial offset detection concept by computationally binning 2D optical data associated with digital offsets based on selected radial pixel distances from the excitation source; (2) hyperspectral imaging using tunable filter; and (3) digital image binding and collation. ORCHID is a versatile modality that is designed to collect optical signals deep inside samples across three spatial (X, Y, Z) as well as spectral dimensions. The ORCHID method is applicable to various optical techniques that exhibit narrow-band structures, from Raman scattering to quantum dot luminescence. Samples containing surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS)-active gold nanostar probes and quantum dots embedded in gel were used to show a proof of principle for the ORCHID concept. The resulting hyperspectral data cube is shown to spatially locate target emitting nanoparticle volumes and provide spectral information for in-depth 3D imaging.

47 OTHER INSTRUMENTATION↗
DOE OSTI2024

Unveiling the nanoscale architectures and dynamics of protein assembly with in situ atomic force microscopy

Proteins play a vital role in different biological processes by forming complexes through precise folding with exclusive inter- and intra-molecular interactions. Understanding the structural and regulatory mechanisms underlying protein complex formation provides insights into biophysical processes. Furthermore, the principle of protein assembly gives guidelines for new biomimetic materials with potential applications in medicine, energy, and nanotechnology. Atomic force microscopy (AFM) is a powerful tool for investigating protein assembly and interactions across spatial scales (single molecules to cells) and temporal scales (milliseconds to days). It has significantly contributed to understanding nanoscale architectures, inter- and intra-molecular interactions, and regulatory elements that determine protein structures, assemblies, and functions. This review describes recent advancements in elucidating protein assemblies with in situ AFM. We discuss the structures, diffusions, interactions, and assembly dynamics of proteins captured by conventional and high-speed AFM in near-native environments and recent AFM developments in the multimodal high-resolution imaging, bimodal imaging, live cell imaging, and machine-learning-enhanced data analysis. These approaches show the significance of broadening the horizons of AFM and enable unprecedented explorations of protein assembly for biomaterial design and biomedical research.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2023

Protein-activated atomic layer deposition for robust crude-oil-repellent hierarchical nano-armored membranes

Atomic layer deposition (ALD) offers unique capabilities to fabricate atomically engineered porous materials with precise pore tuning and multi-functionalization for diverse applications like advanced membrane separations towards sustainable energy-water systems. However, current ALD technique is inhibited on most non-polar polymeric membranes due to lack of accessible nucleation sites. Here, in this study, we report a facile method to efficiently promote ALD coating on hydrophobic surface of polymeric membranes via novel protein activation/sensitization. As a proof of concept, TiO 2 ALD-coated membranes activated by bovine serum albumin exhibit remarkable superhydrophilicity, ultralow underwater crude oil adhesion, and robust tolerance to rigorous environments including acid, alkali, saline, and ethanol. Most importantly, excellent cyclable crude oil-in-water emulsion separation performance can be achieved. The mechanism for activation/sensitization is rooted in reactivity for a particular set of amino acids. Furthermore, the universality of protein-sensitized ALD is demonstrated using common egg white, promising numerous potential usages in biomedical engineering, environmental remediation, lowcarbon manufacturing, catalysis, and beyond.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2022

Tomographic detection of photon pairs produced from high-energy X-rays for the monitoring of radiotherapy dosing

Measuring the radiation dose reaching a patient’s body is difficult. Here we report a technique for the tomographic reconstruction of the location of photon pairs originating from the annihilation of positron–electron pairs produced by high-energy X-rays travelling through tissue. We used Monte Carlo simulations on pre-recorded data from tissue-mimicking phantoms and from a patient with a brain tumour to show the feasibility of this imaging modality, which we named ‘pair-production tomography’, for the monitoring of radiotherapy dosing. We simulated three image-reconstruction methods, one applicable to a pencil X-ray beam scanning through a region of interest, and two applicable to the excitation of tissue volumes via broad beams (with temporal resolution sufficient to identify coincident photon pairs via filtered back projection, or with higher temporal resolution sufficient for the estimation of a photon’s time-of-flight). In addition to the monitoring of radiotherapy dosing, we show that image contrast resulting from pair-production tomography is highly proportional to the material’s atomic number. The technique may thus also allow for element mapping and for soft-tissue differentiation.

62 RADIOLOGY AND NUCLEAR MEDICINE↗
DOE OSTI2026

Machine Learning-Enabled Wearable Piezoelectric Acoustic Sensor for Real-Time Breast Abnormality Detection

In contemporary society, breast health has become a significant public health concern, particularly among women. According to statistics from the World Health Organization, both the incidence and mortality rates of breast tumors have steadily increased in recent years. Therefore, effective early-stage screening and postoperative monitoring are essential for maintaining breast health. However, conventional clinical diagnostic modalities are typically bulky, operationally complex, and unsuitable for continuous real-time monitoring, which limits their use in portable and everyday health management applications. To address these limitations, this study proposes a machine learning-integrated wearable piezoelectric sensing platform as an auxiliary tool for breast health assessment. The device consists of a PDMS matching layer embedded with flexible silver nanowires, a P(VDF-TrFE) piezoelectric layer, and a multi-channel low-noise signal acquisition circuit. It is capable of acquiring acoustic echo signals from tissue-mimicking environments and automatically evaluating signal validity using a convolutional neural network (CNN). By integrating piezoelectric sensing with deep learning-based signal analysis, the proposed system achieves a signal-to-noise ratio exceeding 70 dB and a real-time classification accuracy above 96% under controlled conditions. These results demonstrate that the platform provides a compact, portable, and intelligent approach for wearable sensing of mechanical heterogeneity and highlight its potential for future development in continuous biomedical monitoring technologies.

He, Shuaitong↗
DOE OSTI2021

BioSecure Digital Twin: Manufacturing Innovation and Cybersecurity Resilience

U.S. national security, prosperity, economy, and well-being require secure, flexible, and resilient Biopharmaceutical Manufacturing. The COVID-19 pandemic reaffirmed that the biomedical production value-chain is vulnerable to disruption and has been under attack from sophisticated nation-state adversaries. Current cyber defenses are inadequate, and the integrity of critical production systems and processes are inherently vulnerable to cyber-attacks, human error, and supply chain disruptions. The following chapter explores how a BioSecure Digital Twin will improve U.S. manufacturing resilience and preparedness to respond to these hazards by significantly improving monitoring, integrity, security, and agility of our manufacturing infrastructure and systems. The BioSecure Digital Twin combines a scalable manufacturing framework with a robust platform for monitoring and control to increase U.S. biopharma manufacturing resilience. Then, the chapter discusses some of the inherent vulnerabilities and challenges at the nexus of health and advanced manufacturing. Next, the chapter highlights that as the Pandemic evolves, we need agility and resilience to overcome significant obstacles. This section highlights an innovative application of Cyber Informed Engineering to developing and deploying a BioSecure Digital Twin to improve the resilience and security of the biopharma industrial supply chain and production processes. Finally, the chapter concludes with a process framework to complement the Digital Twin platform, called the Biopharma (Observe, Orient, Decide, Act) OODA Loop Framework (BOLF), a four-step approach to decision-making outputs from the Digital Twin. The BOLF will help end users leverage twin technology by distilling the available information, focusing the data on context, and rapidly making the best decision while remaining cognizant of changes that can be made as more data becomes available.

99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS↗
DOE OSTI2025

Mechanical and Thermal Characterization of Additively Manufactured Carbon/Nylon 12 and Carbon/PEEK Composites

This study explores additive manufacturing of carbon fiber-reinforced thermoplastic composites using the Composite-Based Additive Manufacturing (CBAM) process. Carbon/Nylon 12 and Carbon/PEEK composites were fabricated and evaluated through mechanical (compression, tensile, flexural, and impact) and thermal (DSC and TGA) tests. Carbon/PEEK exhibited superior mechanical performance, with 97.5% higher tensile strength, 79.8% higher elastic modulus, and 59.6% higher flexural strength compared to Carbon/Nylon 12. Thermal testing showed that Carbon/PEEK had higher thermal stability, beginning degradation at 350 °C versus 298 °C for Carbon/Nylon. These results indicate that CBAM-fabricated Carbon/PEEK composites are suitable for applications requiring high strength and temperature resistance.

Additive manufacturing↗
DOE OSTI2022

Intestinal single-cell atlas reveals novel lymphocytes in pigs with similarities to human cells

Lymphocytes can heavily influence intestinal health, but resolving intestinal lymphocyte function is challenging as the intestine contains a vastly heterogeneous mixture of cells. Pigs are an advantageous biomedical model, but deeper understanding of intestinal lymphocytes is warranted to improve model utility. Twenty-six cell types were identified in the porcine ileum by single-cell RNA sequencing and further compared with cells in human and murine ileum. Though general consensus of cell subsets across species was revealed, some porcine-specific lymphocyte subsets were identified. Differential tissue dissection and in situ analyses conferred spatial context, revealing similar locations of lymphocyte subsets in Peyer’s patches and epithelium in pig-to-human comparisons. Like humans, activated and effector lymphocytes were abundant in the ileum but not periphery of pigs, suggesting tissue-specific and/or activation-associated gene expression. Gene signatures for peripheral and ileal innate lymphoid cells newly discovered in pigs were defined and highlighted similarities to human innate lymphoid cells. Overall, we reveal novel lymphocyte subsets in pigs and highlight utility of pigs for intestinal research applications.

Life Sciences & Biomedicine - Other Topics↗
DOE OSTI2024

Harnessing quantum light for microscopic biomechanical imaging of cells and tissues

The biomechanical properties of cells and tissues play an important role in our fundamental understanding of the structures and functions of biological systems at both the cellular and subcellular levels. Recently, Brillouin microscopy, which offers a label-free spectroscopic means of assessing viscoelastic properties in vivo, has emerged as a powerful way to interrogate those properties on a microscopic level in living tissues. However, susceptibility to photodamage and photobleaching, particularly when high-intensity laser beams are used to induce Brillouin scattering, poses a significant challenge. This article introduces a transformative approach designed to mitigate photodamage in biological and biomedical studies, enabling nondestructive, label-free assessments of mechanical properties in live biological samples. By leveraging quantum-light-enhanced stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS) imaging contrast, the signal-to-noise ratio is significantly elevated, thereby increasing sample viability and extending interrogation times without compromising the integrity of living samples. The tangible impact of this methodology is evidenced by a notable three-fold increase in sample viability observed after subjecting the samples to three hours of continuous squeezed-light illumination, surpassing the traditional coherent light-based approaches. The quantum-enhanced SBS imaging holds promise across diverse fields, such as cancer biology and neuroscience where preserving sample vitality is of paramount significance. By mitigating concerns regarding photodamage and photobleaching associated with high-intensity lasers, this technological breakthrough expands our horizons for exploring the mechanical properties of live biological systems, paving the way for an era of research and clinical applications.

Li, Tian↗