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Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

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At least 19 records
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2016

"FACILS 2014: Microbially-driven facilitation systems in environmental biotechnology" (hereafter "FACILS") presented here by the European Commission (EC)-United States (US) Task Force on Biotechnology Research

As we enter the 21st century, the sustainability of the biosphere is a global challenge that can best be met with a global response. This includes how we train and promote our next generation of research scientists in the emerging arenas of genome-enabled biology and a bio-based economy. It is this fundamental issue that formed the motivation for designing and conducting a shortcourse entitled “FACILIS 2014: Microbially-driven facilitation systems in environmental biotechnology” (hereafter “FACILIS”) presented here by the European Commission (EC)-United States (US) Task Force on Biotechnology Research. This WG was established in 1994 under the umbrella of the US-EC Task Force on Biotechnology Research, a transatlantic collaborative group overseen by the US Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) and the EC. The Environmental Biotechnology Working Group maintains several goals, including establishing research links between scientists in EU countries and the US and fostering the careers of junior scientists from both sides of the Atlantic to the global nature of scientific cooperation. To that end, a shortcourse was held at the University of Milan in Italy on July 12-25 2014 organized around cross-cutting themes of genomic science and designed to attract a stellar group of interdisciplinary early carrier researchers. A total of 22 students, 10 from the US and 12 from the EU participated. The course provided them with hands-on experience with the latest scientific methods in genomics and bioinformatics; using a format that combines lectures, laboratory research and field work with the final goal to enable researchers to finally turn data into knowledge.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
NASA NTRS2001

ISS Biotechnology Facility - Overview of Analytical Tools for Cellular Biotechnology Investigations

The ISS Biotechnology Facility (BTF) platform provides scientists with a unique opportunity to carry out diverse experiments in a microgravity environment for an extended period of time. Although considerable progress has been made in preserving cells on the ISS for long periods of time for later return to Earth, future biotechnology experiments would desirably monitor, process, and analyze cells in a timely way on-orbit. One aspect of our work has been directed towards developing biochemical sensors for pH, glucose, oxygen, and carbon dioxide for perfused bioreactor system developed at Johnson Space Center. Another aspect is the examination and identification of new and advanced commercial biotechnologies that may have applications to on-orbit experiments.

Jeevarajan, A. S.↗
DOE OSTI2013

Advanced genetic tools for plant biotechnology

Basic research has provided a much better understanding of the genetic networks and regulatory hierarchies in plants. To meet the challenges of agriculture, we must be able to rapidly translate this knowledge into generating improved plants. Therefore, in this Review, we discuss advanced tools that are currently available for use in plant biotechnology to produce new products in plants and to generate plants with new functions. These tools include synthetic promoters, 'tunable' transcription factors, genome-editing tools and site-specific recombinases. We also review some tools with the potential to enable crop improvement, such as methods for the assembly and synthesis of large DNA molecules, plant transformation with linked multigenes and plant artificial chromosomes. These genetic technologies should be integrated to realize their potential for applications to pressing agricultural and environmental problems.

Liu, WS↗
DOE OSTI2020

The National Virtual Biotechnology Laboratory Symposium: Harnessing the unique strengths of DOE to tackle the biotechnology challenges of COVID-19, October 28, 2020

This virtual symposium was held to highlight the impact the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) National Virtual Biotechnology Laboratory (NVBL) has had utilizing the unique capabilities of the DOE to tackle the science and technology challenges associated with COVID-19, and to discuss areas in which the NVBL can have impact in the future. With perspectives from Chris Fall, Director, Office of Science, DOE, and William A. Bookless, Principal Deputy Administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration, the event featured Presentations from lead investigators reporting progress in: Epidemiological modeling, Therapeutics, Testing, Understanding transport of the virus, and Solving issues around supply chain challenges. In addition, keynote speakers from outside the NVBL discussed the upcoming science and technology needs in computing, testing and surveillance, and vaccines. The event was aimed at the S&T community, media, and general public.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗
NASA NTRS2004

Space Biotechnology and Commercial Applications University of Florida

The Space Biotechnology and Commercial Applications grant was funded by NASA's Kennedy Space Center in FY 2002 to provide dedicated biotechnology and agricultural research focused on the regeneration of space flight environments with direct parallels in Earth-based applications for solving problems in the environment, advances in agricultural science, and other human support issues amenable to targeted biotechnology solutions. This grant had three project areas, each with multiple tasks. They are: 1) Space Agriculture and Biotechnology Research and Education, 2) Integrated Smart Nanosensors for Space Biotechnology Applications, and 3) Commercial Applications. The Space Agriculture and Biotechnology Research and Education (SABRE) Center emphasized the fundamental biology of organisms involved in space flight applications, including those involved in advanced life support environments because of their critical role in the long-term exploration of space. The SABRE Center supports research at the University of Florida and at the Space Life Sciences Laboratory (SLSL) at the Kennedy Space Center. The Integrated Smart Nanosensors for Space Biotechnology Applications component focused on developing and applying sensor technologies to space environments and agricultural systems. The research activities in nanosensors were coordinated with the SABRE portions of this grant and with the research sponsored by the NASA Environmental Systems Commercial Space Technology Center located in the Department of Environmental Engineering Sciences. Initial sensor efforts have focused on air and water quality monitoring essential to humans for living and working permanently in space, an important goal identified in NASA's strategic plan. The closed environment of a spacecraft or planetary base accentuates cause and effect relationships and environmental impacts. The limited available air and water resources emphasize the need for reuse, recycling, and system monitoring. It is essential to collect real-time information from these systems to ensure crew safety. This new class of nanosensors will be critical to monitoring the space flight environment in future NASA space systems. The Commercial Applications component of this program pursued industry partnerships to develop products for terrestrial use of NASA sponsored technologies, and in turn to stimulate growth in the biotechnology industry. For technologies demonstrating near term commercial potential, the objective is to include industry partners on or about the time of proof of concept that will not only co-invest in the technology but also take the resultant technology to the commercial market.

Phillips, Winfred↗
NASA NTRS1988

Space and biotechnology: An industry profile

The results of a study conducted by the Center for Space and Advanced Technology (CSAT) for NASA-JSC are presented. The objectives were to determine the interests and attitudes of the U.S. biotechnology industry toward space biotechnology and to prepare a concise review of the current activities of the biotechnology industry. In order to accomplish these objectives, two primary actions were taken. First, a questionnaire was designed, reviewed, and distributed to U.S. biotechnology companies. Second, reviews of the various biotechnology fields were prepared in several aspects of the industry. For each review, leading figures in the field were asked to prepare a brief review pointing out key trends and current industry technical problems. The result is a readable narrative of the biotechnology industry which will provide space scientists and engineers valuable clues as to where the space environment can be explored to advance the U.S. biotechnology industry.

Johnston, Richard S.↗
DOE OSTI2017

Workshop Summary for Maintaining Innovation and Security in Biotechnology: Lessons Learned from Nuclear, Chemical, and Informational Technologies

In the fast-paced field of biotechnology where innovation has such far-reaching impacts on human health and the environment, dealing with the implications of possible illicit activities, accidents or unintended research consequences with potential detrimental societal impacts tends to remain in the background. While controls may be inevitable for the biotech industry, workshop attendees agreed that the way in which controls are implemented will play a major role in the agility and innovation of the biotechnology industry. There is little desire to slow down the pace of the gains while dealing with the security issues that arise. As was seen from the brief examinations of the Nuclear, Chemical, and Information Technology sectors explored in this workshop, establishing a regulatory regime needs to be a partnership between the public, corporate interests, scientists, and the government. Regulation is often written to combat perceived risk rather than actual risk—the public’s perceptions (occasionally even fictional portrayals) can spur regulatory efforts. This leads to the need for a thorough and continuing assessment of the risks posed by modern biotechnology. Inadequate or minimal risk assessment might expedite development in the short term but has potential negative long-term security and economic consequences. Industry and the technical community also often have a large role in setting regulatory policy, especially when well-crafted incentives are incorporated into the regulations. Such incentives might actually lead to enhanced innovation while poorly designed incentives can actually reduce safety and security. Any regulations should be as agile and flexible as the technology they regulate and when applied to biotechnologies they will need a new framework for thinking and implementing. The new framework should consider biotechnology as a technology and not simply a science since it is an extremely complex and adaptive system. This suggests the need to invest in social and political systems, rather than exclusively in technology, as a part of maintaining not only robust, but agile regulation. Modeling and simulations to illustrate how the biotech ecosystem might respond to new policies may be a promising approach to crafting regulations.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2025

2024 IUFRO Tree Biotechnology Conference (Aug 4-8, 2024)

The 2024 IUFRO Tree Biotechnology Conference is the biennial meeting on genomics, molecular biology, and biotechnology of forest trees, associated with the IUFRO Working Party 2.04.06. This year's meeting was held in Annapolis, MD, USA from August 4th to 8th and was hosted by Yiping Qi (University of Maryland), Edward Eisenstein (University of Maryland), Gary Coleman (University of Maryland), and Heather Coleman (Syracuse University). The conference covered seven topics over the course of five days: 1) Biological and ecological insights from OMICS, 2) Advancing technologies for targeted trait manipulation and acceptability to diverse tree species, 3) Genes, development, and physiology, 4) Translating genomics and biotechnology to practice, 5) Trees in a changing world, 6) Genetic and phenotypic diversity for breeding and genomic selection, and 7) Biotechnology for biomaterials and bioeconomy. In addition to the sessions, there were two plenary sessions, provided by John Ralph (University of Wisconsin) and Tanja Pyrhäjärvi (University of Helsinki). The meeting celebrated the second awardees of the newly created IUFRO WG 2.04.06 Award: Excellence in Forest Molecular Biology and Genomics, which was presented to Chung-Jui (C.J.) Tsai (University of Georgia). Greg Goralogia (Oregon State University) was the recipient of the associated Early Career Award. The scientific presentations at the conference highlighted cutting-edge advancements in many facets of forest biotechnology research, including applications of genomic selection in forest genetics and breeding, the use of genetic editing, tree physiology, stress response, molecular breeding, wood development, "omics" technologies, and the social and economic impacts of genetically modified (GM) trees. Scientific take homes from the meeting include the power of NMR to dissect the composition of lignin, the genomic diversity of forest trees that has enormous potential for tree improvement and the integration of systems biology with climate and geographical data. The conference attracted a mix of students (25), postdoctoral fellows (32), and scientists from academia (66) and industry (18). In all, the conference was attended by 141 registered participants, representing 20 countries that participated in 23 invited lectures (including 6 'early-career' keynotes), 27 voluntary talks and 61 poster presentations. Support for the conference was drawn from a wide variety of Academia, Industry, and Government sources, and included financial support from several tree improvement companies. Overall, the conference was a great success, providing an exceptional mix of science and social activities in a relaxed and collegial atmosphere. More information about the meeting can be found at treebiotech.org. The next meeting will be held in Stellenbosch, South Africa, in 2026, hosted jointly by Zander Myburg, Dave Drew (University of Stellenbosch,) and Sanushka Naidoo (University of Pretoria, FABI).

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗
NASA NTRS2000

Biotechnology Facility: An ISS Microgravity Research Facility

The International Space Station (ISS) will support several facilities dedicated to scientific research. One such facility, the Biotechnology Facility (BTF), is sponsored by the Microgravity Sciences and Applications Division (MSAD) and developed at NASA's Johnson Space Center. The BTF is scheduled for delivery to the ISS via Space Shuttle in April 2005. The purpose of the BTF is to provide: (1) the support structure and integration capabilities for the individual modules in which biotechnology experiments will be performed, (2) the capability for human-tended, repetitive, long-duration biotechnology experiments, and (3) opportunities to perform repetitive experiments in a short period by allowing continuous access to microgravity. The MSAD has identified cell culture and tissue engineering, protein crystal growth, and fundamentals of biotechnology as areas that contain promising opportunities for significant advancements through low-gravity experiments. The focus of this coordinated ground- and space-based research program is the use of the low-gravity environment of space to conduct fundamental investigations leading to major advances in the understanding of basic and applied biotechnology. Results from planned investigations can be used in applications ranging from rational drug design and testing, cancer diagnosis and treatments and tissue engineering leading to replacement tissues.

Gonda, Steve R.↗
NASA NTRS2004

The Biotechnology Facility for International Space Station

The primary mission of the Cellular Biotechnology Program is to advance microgravity as a tool in basic and applied cell biology. The microgravity environment can be used to study fundamental principles of cell biology and to achieve specific applications such as tissue engineering. The Biotechnology Facility (BTF) will provide a state-of-the-art facility to perform cellular biotechnology research onboard the International Space Station (ISS). The BTF will support continuous operation, which will allow performance of long-duration experiments and will significantly increase the on-orbit science throughput. With the BTF, dedicated ground support, and a community of investigators, the goals of the Cellular Biotechnology Program at Johnson Space Center are to: Support approximately 400 typical investigator experiments during the nominal design life of BTF (10 years). Support a steady increase in investigations per year, starting with stationary bioreactor experiments and adding rotating bioreactor experiments at a later date. Support at least 80% of all new cellular biotechnology investigations selected through the NASA Research Announcement (NRA) process. Modular components - to allow sequential and continuous experiment operations without cross-contamination Increased cold storage capability (+4 C, -80 C, -180 C). Storage of frozen cell culture inoculum - to allow sequential investigations. Storage of post-experiment samples - for return of high quality samples. Increased number of cell cultures per investigation, with replicates - to provide sufficient number of samples for data analysis and publication of results in peer-reviewed scientific journals.

Goodwin, Thomas↗
DOE OSTI2015

The impact of biotechnological advances on the future of US bioenergy

Abstract Modern biotechnology has the potential to substantially advance the feasibility, structure, and efficiency of future biofuel supply chains. Advances might be direct or indirect. A direct advance would be improving the efficiency of biochemical conversion processes and feedstock production. Direct advances in processing may involve developing improved enzymes and bacteria to convert lignocellulosic feedstocks to ethanol. Progress in feedstock production could include enhancing crop yields via genetic modification or the selection of specific natural variants and breeds. Other direct results of biotechnology might increase the production of fungible biofuels and bioproducts, which would impact the supply chain. Indirect advances might include modifications to dedicated bioenergy crops that enable them to grow on marginal lands rather than land needed for food production. This study assesses the feasibility and advantages of near‐future (10‐year) biotechnological developments for a US biomass‐based supply chain for bioenergy production. We assume a simplified supply chain of feedstock, logistics and land use, conversion, and products and utilization. The primary focus is how likely developments in feedstock production and conversion technologies will impact bioenergy and biofuels in the USA ; a secondary focus is other innovative uses of biotechnologies in the energy arenas. The assessment addresses near‐term biofuels based on starch, sugar, and cellulosic feedstocks and considers some longer‐term options, such as oil‐crop and algal technologies. Published 2015. This article is a U.S. Government work and is in the public domain in the USA. Biofuels, Bioproducts and Biorefining published by Society of Industrial Chemistry and John Wiley & Sons Ltd

09 BIOMASS FUELS↗
DOE OSTI2013

Fungi and Industrial Biotechnology – A special issue for an amazing kingdom

This special issue of Industrial Biotechnology is focused on fungi. Fungi play a diverse and important role in industrial biotechnology. The first US biotechnology patent was made in 1896 by Takamine for production of digestive enzymes by the fungus, Aspergillus oryzae (Bennett and Baker, 2008). The fact that this patent makes use of A. orzyae enzymes is especially fitting as this organism and other koji fungi have been used for centuries in the preparation of Asian foods and beverages that include but are not limited to soy sauce, miso and sake (Abe and Gomi, 2008). The first half of the 20th century saw industrial bioprocesses that used fungi for the production of organic acids and antibiotics. We continue to develop fungal systems for production of medicines, enzymes, biofuels and renewable chemistry (Baker et al., 2008; Grigoriev et al., 2011). In recent decades we have seen advances in fungal genetics, genomics and molecular biology. These advances, driven in part by the needs of industry in a number of areas have had profound implications for fungal biotechnology.

biotechnology, fungi, Aspergillus, Trichoderma↗
DOE OSTI2017

Biotechnological Applications of Microbial (Per)chlorate Reduction

While the microbial degradation of a chloroxyanion-based herbicide was first observed nearly ninety years ago, only recently have researchers elucidated the underlying mechanisms of perchlorate and chlorate [collectively, (per)chlorate] respiration. Although the obvious application of these metabolisms lies in the bioremediation and attenuation of (per)chlorate in contaminated environments, a diversity of alternative and innovative biotechnological applications has been proposed based on the unique metabolic abilities of dissimilatory (per)chlorate-reducing bacteria (DPRB). This is fueled in part by the unique ability of these organisms to generate molecular oxygen as a transient intermediate of the central pathway of (per)chlorate respiration. This ability, along with other novel aspects of the metabolism, have resulted in a wide and disparate range of potential biotechnological applications being proposed, including enzymatic perchlorate detection; gas gangrene therapy; enhanced xenobiotic bioremediation; oil reservoir bio-souring control; chemostat hygiene control; aeration enhancement in industrial bioreactors; and, biogenic oxygen production for planetary exploration. While previous reviews focus on the fundamental science of microbial (per)chlorate reduction (for example see Youngblut et al., 2016), here, we provide an overview of the emerging biotechnological applications of (per)chlorate respiration and the underlying organisms and enzymes to environmental and biotechnological industries.

bio-souring control↗