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Lab celebrates a year of scientific successes, from creating the biggest bits of antimatter to improving qubits, catalysts, batteries, and more!

With one-of-a-kind research facilities leveraged by scientists from across the nation and around the world, the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory is a veritable city of science. Each year brings discoveries, from the scale of subatomic particles to the vastness of Earth’s atmosphere and the cosmos, that have the potential to power new technologies and provide solutions to major societal challenges. Here, the Lab presents, in no particular order, its top 10 discoveries of 2024 … plus a few major Brookhaven Lab milestones.

Heaviest antimatter nucleus

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Antimatter sounds exotic, but it really does exist — just not for long. This year, scientists studying collisions of atomic nuclei at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) — an “atom smasher” that recreates the conditions of the early universe — discovered the heaviest antimatter nucleus ever detected. It’s composed of four antimatter particles: an antiproton, two antineutrons, and a particle called an antihyperon. It lasts only a fraction of a second before decaying into other particles. To find it, physicists from RHIC’s STAR collaboration searched through particles streaming from billions of collisions to find just 16 of the rare “antihyperhydrogen-4” particles. There used to be lots of antimatter, back when the universe first formed, but when antimatter meets ordinary matter, the two self-destruct. The ability to create new antimatter particles today, like these heavy antimatter nuclei, gives scientists new ways to test for matter-antimatter differences that might explain why the universe is made only of matter.

Low-temp, direct conversion of natural gas to liquid fuel

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Brookhaven Lab chemists engineered a highly selective catalyst that can convert methane, a major component of natural gas, into methanol, an easily transportable liquid fuel, in a single, one-step reaction. This direct process for methane-to-methanol conversion runs at a temperature lower than required to make tea and exclusively produces methanol without additional byproducts. That’s a big advance over more complex traditional conversions that typically require three separate reactions, each under different conditions, including vastly higher temperatures. The simplicity of the system could make it particularly useful for tapping “stranded” natural gas reserves in isolated rural areas, far from the costly infrastructure of pipelines and chemical refineries, and without the need to transport high-pressure, flammable liquified natural gas. The team made use of tools at two DOE Office of Science user facilities at Brookhaven Lab, the Center for Functional Nanomaterials and the National Synchrotron Light Source II. They are exploring ways to work with entrepreneurial partners to bring the technology to market.

Plants’ sugar-sensing machinery

Proteins

Proteins are molecular machines, with flexible pieces and moving parts. Understanding how these parts move helps scientists unravel the function that a protein plays in living things — and potentially how to change its effects. This year, a team led by Brookhaven Lab biochemists working with colleagues from DOE’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory discovered how protein machinery in plants controls whether the plants can grow and make energy-intensive products such as oil — or instead put in place a series of steps to conserve precious resources. The researchers showed how the molecular machinery is regulated by a molecule that rises and falls with the level of sugar, the product of photosynthesis and plants’ main energy source. The research could help identify proteins or parts of proteins that scientists could engineer to make plants that produce more oil for use as biofuels or other oil-based products.

Protecting a promising qubit material

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Tantalum is a superconducting material that shows great promise for building qubits, the basis of quantum computers. This year, a team that spans multiple Brookhaven departments discovered that adding a thin layer of magnesium improves tantalum by keeping it from oxidizing. The coating also improves tantalum’s purity and raises the temperature at which it operates as a superconductor. All three effects may increase tantalum’s ability to hold onto quantum information in qubits. This work was carried out as part of the Co-design Center for Quantum Advantage, a Brookhaven-led National Quantum Information Science Research Center, and included scientists from the Lab’s Condensed Matter Physics & Materials Science Department, Center for Functional Nanomaterials, and National Synchrotron Light Source II, as well as theorists at DOE’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. It built on earlier work that also included scientists from Princeton University.

Where cloud droplets are born

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A team led by Brookhaven Lab atmospheric scientists made the first-ever remote-sensing observations of the cloud-droplet “birth zone” at the base of clouds, where aerosol particles suspended in Earth’s atmosphere give rise to the droplets that ultimately form clouds. The number of droplets formed in this transition zone will affect a cloud’s later stages and properties, including their reflection of sunlight and the likelihood of precipitation. The research was made possible by a high-resolution LIDAR system that sends laser beams into the atmosphere and measures the signals of backscattered light with a resolution of 10 centimeters. This tool, developed by the Brookhaven scientists in collaboration with colleagues from the Stevens Institute of Technology and Raymetrics S.A., will enhance scientists’ understanding of aerosol-cloud interactions and help them gain insight into how changes in atmospheric aerosol levels could affect clouds and climate — without having to fly up into the clouds.

Hacking DNA to make next-gen materials

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Scientists at the Center for Functional Nanomaterials (CFN) are experts at using DNA as a tool for “programming” molecules to self-assemble into 3D nanostructures. By directing molecular and nanoscale building blocks toward specific arrangements they’ve designed, the researchers create novel, functional materials that exhibit desirable properties like electrical conductivity, photosensitivity, and chemical activity. This year, a team of researchers from CFN, Columbia University, and Stony Brook University significantly improved this process and expanded its applications. By stacking several material synthesis techniques, the team developed a new method of DNA-directed self-assembly that enables the production of a wide variety of metallic and semiconductor 3D nanostructures — the potential base materials for next-generation semiconductor devices, neuromorphic computing, and advanced energy applications. It is the first method of its kind to produce robust and designed 3D nanostructures from multiple material classes, setting the stage for new breakthroughs in advanced manufacturing at small scales.

Scientists calculate predictions for EIC measurements

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Nuclear theorists used supercomputer calculations to accurately predict the distribution of electric charges in mesons, particles made of a quark and an antiquark. These predictions will provide a basis for comparison in future experiments at the Electron-Ion Collider (EIC), a facility that, among other goals, will explore how quarks, and the gluons that hold them together, are distributed within mesons, protons, and neutrons. The calculations also helped validate “factorization,” a widely used approach for deciphering particle properties. This approach breaks complex physical processes into two components, or factors, and will enable many more EIC predictions and more confident interpretations of experimental results. Calculations like these will help EIC scientists unravel how the fundamental building blocks that make up atoms stick together.

Atomic ‘GPS’ uncovers hidden material phase

schematic shows how the absorption of a laser photon initiates a small change that propagates throug

Brookhaven scientists created the first-ever atomic movies showing how atoms rearrange locally within a quantum material as it transitions from an insulator to a metal. Their research marked a methodological achievement, as they demonstrated that a materials characterization technique called atomic pair distribution function (PDF) is feasible — and successful — at X-ray free-electron laser (XFEL) facilities. PDF is typically used to observe materials that change over minutes to hours at synchrotron light sources, but the bright and short X-ray pulses produced by an XFEL facility enabled the capture of atomic movement on a picosecond time scale. With the new ultrafast PDF technique, which provides atomic routes like a navigation app, the researchers discovered a “hidden” material state, providing new insight into what really happens when certain quantum materials are excited by a laser.

Chemists engineer surprising battery chemistry

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Lithium-metal batteries, which have lithium metal anodes, can store more than twice the energy of lithium-ion batteries with graphite anodes. Yet most battery-operated devices are still powered by lithium-ion batteries. This year, Brookhaven chemists made significant contributions to DOE’s lithium-metal battery efforts by adding a compound called cesium nitrateto the electrolyte separating the battery’s anode and cathode. Their addition ultimately targeted the interphase, a protective layer formed on the battery’s electrodes and closely linked to the number of times a battery can be charged and discharged. The cesium nitrate additive made the batteries recharge faster while maintaining cycle life. However, closer analysis with tools at the National Synchrotron Light Source II and the Center for Functional Nanomaterials revealed two surprises: an unexpected interphase component and the absence of one previously considered essential for good battery performance. Though these findings challenge conventional battery beliefs, they create new opportunities for battery engineering.

X-rays unlock structure and function in cells

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Every plant, animal, and person is a complex microcosm of tiny, specialized cells. These cells are like their own worlds, each with unique parts and processes that cannot be seen with the naked eye. Being able to see the inner workings of these microscopic building blocks at nanometer resolution without harming their delicate parts has been a challenge. But this year, Brookhaven Lab biologists and scientists at the National Synchrotron Light Source II used a combination of X-ray methods to see inside cells in a whole new way. By using both hard X-ray computed tomography and X-ray fluorescence microscopy, they can reveal not just the structural details but also the chemical processes inside cells. This multimodal X-ray imaging approach could have significant implications in fields such as medicine, bioenergy, agriculture, and other important areas.

Other major milestones Brookhaven Lab celebrated this year

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Electron-Ion Collider begins procurements

DOE gave the go-ahead for the purchase of “long-lead” equipment, services, and/or materials needed to build a state-of-the-art Electron-Ion Collider (EIC). This nuclear physics facility will be built at Brookhaven in partnership with DOE’s Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility and a wide range of other partners to explore the inner workings of the building blocks of matter and the strongest force in nature. Purchasing materials and equipment needed for sophisticated components for the EIC accelerator, detector, and supporting infrastructure ensures that the team will be ready when construction begins. It’s an important step toward the ultimate goal of efficiently delivering one of the most challenging and exciting accelerator complexes ever built by the mid 2030s.

Scientific data storage record

The Lab’s Scientific Data and Computing Center now stores more than 300 petabytes of data — the largest compilation of nuclear and particle physics data in the U.S. For comparison, that’s far more data than would be needed to represent everything written in human history plus all the movies ever created. The cache comes from experiments at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider and the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider, located at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research. Thanks to a combination of relatively economical tape storage and a robot-driven system for mounting data to disks, the cache is easily accessible to collaborators all around the world. The system is set up to meet evolving and expanding data needs for a range of existing experiments at Brookhaven and beyond, including the future Electron-Ion Collider.

NSLS-II celebrates 10 years of light

On Oct. 23, the National Synchrotron Light Source II (NSLS-II) celebrated its 10th anniversary of first light, the moment when its first X-rays were delivered. Over the last decade, this ultrabright light source has grown from six beamlines to 29, ramped up its accelerator current from 50 milliamperes to 500 milliamperes, hosted nearly 6,000 visiting researchers from around the world, and published more than 3,200 research papers. Since 2014, NSLS-II has enabled researchers to study the physical, chemical, and electronic makeup of materials with nanoscale resolution. And with continual advancements over its 10-year history, the facility remains one of the world’s most advanced light sources, accelerating breakthroughs in fields ranging from biology to quantum information science.

Atmospheric observatory opens in Alabama

Brookhaven Lab’s world-leading atmospheric scientists led the plan to install a suite of DOE Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) user facility instruments at a new observatory in the Southeastern U.S. The Bankhead National Forest observatory opened on Oct. 1 and hosted its first scientific workshop and media tours earlier this month. For at least five years, the observatory will provide data for scientists to investigate the complex interactions among clouds, vegetation, and aerosols suspended in the atmosphere. The observatory will contribute valuable insights into aerosol-cloud interactions and feed data to weather and climate models for a more comprehensive understanding of Earth’s atmospheric dynamics.

The research described above was funded primarily by the DOE Office of Science. RHIC, CFN, NSLS-II, and ARM are DOE Office of Science user facilities.

Brookhaven National Laboratory is supported by the Office of Science of the U.S. Department of Energy. The Office of Science is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States and is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, visit science.energy.gov.

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Brookhaven National Laboratory Director JoAnne Hewett. Photo by Jessica Rotkiewicz/BNL

By Daniel Dunaief

Instead of flying a plane through clouds and gathering data during a three to five second window of time, researchers at Brookhaven National Laboratory are one of three teams proposing constructing a cloud chamber.

This new research facility would allow them to control the environment and tweak it with different aerosols, enabling them to see how changes affect drizzle formation.

“This is fascinating,” said JoAnne Hewett, Director of BNL and a self-professed “science geek.”

Hewett, whose background is in theoretical physics and who came to BNL from SLAC National Accelerator Lab in Menlo Park, California, has been the director of the Upton-based lab since April of 2023.

In a celebrity podcast interview, which will be posted on TBR News Media’s website (tbrnewsmedia.com) and Spotify, Hewett addressed a wide range of issues, from updates on developing new technologies such as the Electron Ion Collider and the construction of buildings, to the return of students to the long-awaited reopening of the cafeteria.

The U.S. Department of Energy is currently considering the proposals for the cloud chamber and has taken the first steps towards initiating the project.

Hewett, who is the first woman to lead the national lab in its 77-year history, is hoping the winner will be announced this year.

More x-ray tools

In a discussion about the National Synchrotron Lightsource II, which is a circular electron accelerator ring that sends x-rays into the specialized beamlines, Hewett described a study at the recently opened High Energy X-ray Scattering beamline, or HEX.

The state-funded HEX, which is designed for battery research, recently hosted an experiment to examine the vertebrae from Triceratops.

The NSLS-II, which opened a decade ago and has produced important results in a range of fields, will continue to add beamlines. BNL recently received approval to build another eight to 12 beamlines, depending on available funding. The lab will add one beamline in 2025 and another two in 2026.

Electron-Ion Collider

BNL, meanwhile, is continuing to take important steps in planning for an Electron-Ion Collider (EIC), an ambitious $2.8 billion project the lab won the rights to construct.

The collider, which will reveal secrets of the quarks and gluons that make up atoms, will start construction in 2026 and is expected to generate data sometime in the early 2030’s.

As groups of scientists develop plans for the EIC, they apply to the government to reach various milestones.

In March of this year, the lab met a hurdle called CD3A, which provided $100 million in funding for long lead procurements for some of the parts for the 2.4 mile circumference particle collider.

The next review, called CD3B, will be in early January and will involve $50 million in funding.

The funding for these steps involves ordering parts that the lab knows will be necessary.

The EIC will address five key questions, including how does a proton acquire its spin, what is the nature of dense gluon matter, how do quarks and gluons interact within a nucleus, what is the role of gluons in generating nuclear binding energy, and how do the properties of a proton emerge from its quark and gluon constituents.

Researchers expect the results to have application in a wide range of fields, from materials science, to medicine, to creating tools for complex simulations in areas including climate change.

Return of students

After the Covid pandemic shut down visits from area primary schools, students are now returning in increasingly large numbers.

In 2023, around 22,000 students had a chance to find scientific inspiration at BNL, which is starting to approach the pre-pandemic levels of around 30,000.

School buses come to the science learning center on the campus almost every day.

In addition, BNL hosted a record number of student internships, which are typically for college-age students.

In addition to inspiring an understanding and potentially building careers in science, BNL is now opening a new facility. The science users and support center, which is just outside the gate for the lab, is a three-story building with meeting room space.

“It’s going to be a one-stop-shop” for visiting scientists who come to the lab, Hewett said. Visiting scientists can take care of details like badging and lodges, which they previously did in separate buildings.

Additionally, for staff and visitors, BNL reopened a cafeteria that had been closed for five years. The cafeteria will serve breakfast and lunch with hot food.

“That’s another milestone for the laboratory,” Hewett said. With the extended time when the cafeteria was closed, just about everything will be new on the menu. The reopening of the facility took years because of “all the legalese” in the contract, she added.

A new vision

Hewett spent the first nine months of her tenure getting to know the people and learning the culture of the lab.

She suggested she has a new vision that includes four strategic initiatives. These are: the building blocks of the universe, which includes the Electron-Ion Collider; leading in discovery with light-enabled science, which includes the National Synchrotron Lightsource II; development of the next generation information sciences, including quantum information sciences, microelectronics and artificial intelligence; and addressing environmental and societal challenges.

As for the political landscape and funding for science, Hewett suggested that new administrations always have a change in priorities.

“We’re in the business of doing science,” she said. “Science does not observe politics. It’s not red or blue: it’s just facts.”

She suggested that generally, traditional basic research tends to do fairly well.

The BNL lab director, however, is “always making a concerted effort to justify why this investment [of taxpayer dollars] is necessary,” she said. “That’s not going to change one bit.”

After a recent visit to Capitol Hill, Hewett described her relationship with the New York delegation as “great.” She appreciates how the division that affects people’s perspectives in different parts of the world and that has led to conflicts doesn’t often infect scientists or their goals.

In the field of particle physics, “you have Israelis and Palestinians literally working together side by side,” she said. “It all comes to down to the people doing the science and not the government they happen to live under.”

Hewett also continues to believe in the value of diverse experience in the workplace. “We need the best and the brightest,” she said. “I don’t care if they’re pink with purple polka dots: we want them here at the laboratory doing science for us. We want to develop the workforce of the future.”

Adding key hires

As Hewett has settled into her role, she would like to fill some important staff functions. “This is really two or three jobs that I have to get done in the time it takes to do one job,” she said. “A chief of staff is very much needed to help move some of these projects along.”

Additionally, she is looking for someone to lead research partnerships and technology transfer. “As you do the great science, you want to be able to work hand in hand with industry in order to do the development of that science,” she said.

She said this disconnect between research and industry was known as the “Valley of Death.” Institutions like BNL “do fundamental science and industry has a product, and you don’t do enough of the work to match the two with each other.”

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Image from BNL

At the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory, scientists make history while expanding the frontiers of discovery.

Brookhaven Lab will host a celebration for the milestone anniversaries of two Nobel Prize-winning discoveries — as well as future explorations in physics. This symposium will be held at Brookhaven Lab on Friday, Nov. 22, from 1 to 6 p.m. EST in Berkner Hall.

The event, titled “Decades of Discovery at Brookhaven National Laboratory: Charge-Parity Violation, J/psi, and Future Endeavors in Physics,” is free and open to the public. Visitors to the Laboratory ages 16 and older must bring valid, government-issued photo ID. Digital IDs and copies cannot be accepted.

Those who can’t join in person may attend virtually.

Whether participating in person or virtually, attendees are asked to register as soon as possible.

Register here

About the event

This symposium will feature talks on the discoveries of charge-parity (CP) violation, the J/psi particle, and their impacts on physics research.

“Physicists study particles to unlock mysteries of how the universe works,” said JoAnne Hewett, director of Brookhaven Lab, theoretical physicist, and a featured speaker at the event. “As we celebrate and build on these discoveries, we look ahead to experiments around the world, including the future Electron-Ion Collider, which will use the J/psi for precise measurements inside the atom’s nucleus. We have questions that, today, are unanswered and will be resolved years from now.”

The event will also provide insights on current and future experiments to advance our understanding of the universe, particularly at the:

The list of speakers scheduled to present — including Hewett, Nobel Laureate Samuel Ting, distinguished physicist Martin Breidenbach, former Brookhaven Lab Director Nicholas Samios, historian Robert Crease, and others — is available here.

Refreshments will be served for those who attend in person. The symposium will conclude with a toast to discovery science’s past, present, and future.

About the Nobel Prize-winning discoveries
From left: Nobel Laureates Val Fitch and James CroninenlargeFrom left: Nobel Laureates Val Fitch and James Cronin

60 years since CP violation discovery: This occurred at Brookhaven Lab in 1964, when Val Fitch and James Cronin led a team that discovered a violation of charge conjugation (C) and parity (P) — called “CP violation” — in an experiment at the Alternating Gradient Synchrotron (AGS). Fitch and Cronin were presented with the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1980.

Nobel Laureates Samuel C.C. Ting (front) with collaboratorsenlargeNobel Laureates Samuel C.C. Ting (front) with collaborators

50 years since J/psi discovery: This occurred in 1974, when the J/psi particle was discovered by teams at both Brookhaven Lab and the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC), which today is DOE’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory. Samuel C.C. Ting and his team discovered what he called the “J” particle using the AGS at Brookhaven. Burton Richter and his team found the same particle, which he called the “psi,” at SLAC. Ting and Richter shared the Nobel prize for Physics in 1976.

These discoveries are two among seven recognized with the Nobel Prize at Brookhaven Lab.

SLAC is also hosting an event to celebrate discovery of the J/psi particle. That symposium will be held on Friday, Nov. 8. For more information, visit the event webpage.

Brookhaven National Laboratory is supported by the Office of Science of the U.S. Department of Energy. The Office of Science is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States and is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, visit science.energy.gov.

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From left, Oscar Rivera-Cruz from the University of Puerto Rico, BNL materials scientist Anibal Boscoboinik, Alexander Bailey from West Virginia State University, and Jeremy Lopez from the University of Puerto Rico. Photo courtesy of BNL

By Daniel Dunaief

It’s been a banner year for ideas and potential products that trap noble gases at Brookhaven National Laboratory. So-named for their full complement of electrons, noble gases tend to be less reactive than other atoms that can add electrons to their outer shells.

While their name sounds grandiose, these gases are anything but, particularly when people inhale the radioactive and prevalent gas radon, which can cause lung cancer or when the decay of uranium into xenon makes a nuclear reactor less efficient.

When he was studying how hydrocarbons react at the active site of zeolite models, Brookhaven National Laboratory’s material scientist Anibal Boscoboinik made an accidental discovery about a decade ago that some nanomaterials, which are incredibly small, trap these gases.

Among several other projects he’s working on, Boscoboinik has since studied these nanocages, learning about the trapping mechanism and making variations of these materials and trapping methods that can be useful for a wide range of applications. 

The Battelle Memorial Institute, which partners with Stony Brook University to form Brookhaven Science Associates and manages nine national labs across the country, named Boscoboinik an “inventor of the year” for his work developing these materials.

Battelle awards an inventor of the year to a researcher from each institution under its management, recognizing efforts that contribute to science or engineering and that can have a positive impact on society.

“It feels really good to be recognized for the work,” said Boscoboinik, who is proud of the many people who made this progress possible directly and indirectly. “It would be amazing if we get to see something that stemmed from an accidental discovery doing very basic fundamental research becoming a real-life application that can benefit society.”

At the same time, three students from minority serving institutions were selected to receive seed grants as a part of MSI (for Minority Serving Institutions) Connect at BNL, in which they seek to commercialize a way to remove radon from the air.

They may work in a business to business model to supply other companies that can incorporate their materials into products.

The students, Jeremy Lopez Flores and Oscar Rivera-Cruz from the University of Puerto Rico and Alexander Bailey from West Virginia State University, will enter phase 2 in the process. The next phase of funding comes from other sources, such as FedTech. Boscoboinik will advise the students as they develop the company and any potential products.

These undergraduate students are looking to remove radon from the air at a concentration of four picocuries per liter, which is equivalent to smoking eight cigarettes a day.

“I am certainly pleased that the value of our collective output was recognized,” said Bailey, who is from St. Albans, West Virginia, in an email. Bailey, a sophomore double majoring in chemistry and math, plans to attend graduate school after completing his undergraduate studies.

Rivera-Cruz, who is a senior majoring in Cellular and Molecular Biology, appreciated the guidance from Boscoboinik, whom he described in an email as an “incredible resource for the team” and suggested that the team was “extremely grateful and lucky” to have Boscoboinik’s support.

In other research

As a staff member at the Center for Functional Nanomaterials, Boscoboinik spends half his time working with scientists from around the world who come to the CFN to conduct experiments and half his time working on his own research.

The process of granting time to use the facilities at BNL is extremely competitive, which means the projects he works on with other scientists are compelling. “While I help them with their research, I get to learn from them,” he said.

Boscoboinik regularly works with the group of Professor Guangwen Zhou from Binghamton University. In recent work, they explored the dynamics of peroxide formation on a copper surface in different environments.

In his own work, Boscoboinik is also interested in trying to help the nuclear energy community.

During the breakdown of radioactive uranium, the process heats up water in a tank, moving a turbine that produces energy.

The breakdown of uranium, however, produces the noble gas xenon, which is a neutron absorber, making reactors less efficient.

Boscoboinik anticipates that any new product that could help the field of nuclear energy by removing xenon could be a decade or more away. “This is a highly regulated industry and changes in design take a very long time,” he explained.

Boscoboinik is also collaborating with researchers from Johns Hopkins University on metal organic frameworks. Some molecules pass through these frameworks more rapidly than others, which could enable researchers to use these frameworks to separate out a heterogeneous collection of molecules.

Additionally, he is developing processes to understand dynamic conditions that affect different types of reactions. At this point, he has been looking at the oxidation of carbon monoxide, which he called the “drosophila” of surface science for its widespread use and versatility, to develop the methodology. In oxidation, carbon monoxide mixes with oxygen to make carbon dioxide.

In his work, Boscoboinik has collaborated with Qin Wu, who deploys artificial intelligence to interpret the data he generates in his experiments.

The long-term plan is to develop complex-enough algorithms that suggest experiments based on the analysis and interpretation of data.

Outside the lab

Boscoboinik is a part of a collaborative effort to combine science and music. “We use music as a way to enable conversations between scientists and the general public” to help make the sometimes complex and jargon-laden world of science more accessible, he said.

In Argentina, research groups have taken famous musicians to the lab to perform concerts while encouraging conversations about science. During the course of their visits, the musicians speak with scientists for the benefit of the public. In prior seasons, the musicians used popular songs to relate to the research the scientists they interview do. Part of the plan is to make new songs related to the research.

Boscoboinik is part of a collaboration between Music for Science, the network of Argentinian scientists abroad, and the Argentinian diplomatic missions, including the embassies and the consulates. At some point in the future he may create a show that relates noble gases and music.

As with his some of his scientific work, the connection between music and research is a developing proof of concept that he hopes has broader appeal over time.

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Brookhaven Lab Senior Physicist Mary Bishai, who has been awarded a 2024 Department of Energy Office of Science Distinguished Scientist Fellowship, examines a board of microelectronics designed to operate in a cryogenic neutrino detector at 87 Kelvin (-303 degrees Fahrenheit). Photo by Kevin Coughlin/Brookhaven National Laboratory

Physicist Mary Bishai of the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory has been named a 2024 DOE Office of Science Distinguished Scientist Fellow. The honor recognizes her “enduring contributions at the intensity frontier of high energy physics in unraveling fundamental properties of neutrinos, extraordinary leadership and service to the particle physics community, and deep commitment to broadening participation through mentoring next generation scientists.”

As described in a DOE Office of Science press release issued on Aug. 13, the Distinguished Scientist Fellows program was established to develop, sustain, and promote scientific and academic excellence in Office of Science research through collaborations between universities and national laboratories. Bishai, one of four scientists being honored this year, will receive the award — which consists of $1 million in direct funding for her research — at a ceremony on January 14, 2025, where she will also deliver an online lecture and field questions about her career [registration link: https://science-doe.zoomgov.com/webinar/register/WN_p3QlS3XkRrS9leRYcscytw#/registration].

“It is an honor to recognize the outstanding research of these awardees,” said Harriet Kung, acting director of the DOE Office of Science. “They are advancing science solutions for the nation and taking on some of our biggest challenges in bioenergy, materials science, physics, and computing. I look forward to their continued success and impactful results, especially as they continue to move forward in their careers, inspiring a new generation of scientists ready to tackle the big questions and challenges of the future.”

Bishai has made understanding the properties of elementary particles her life’s work, and she has spent the last two decades at Brookhaven working to understand the properties of the elusive neutrino . Her leadership on neutrino experiments led her to be elected co-spokesperson  of the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE) in January 2023. DUNE is a 1,400-person project with scientists from more than 30 countries and 200 institutions. This experiment will shoot neutrinos over a thousand kilometers from DOE’s Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab) in Illinois through Earth’s crust to detectors deep within the Sanford Underground Research Facility(SURF) in South Dakota to see how these enigmatic entities change as they travel.

“This fellowship is a great honor,” she said. After spending her early career working at Purdue University and studying charm quarks at the CLEO experiment at Cornell University, Bishai transitioned to work at DOE laboratories. She reflected, “I have spent a rewarding career involved in leading particle physics experiments at the national labs, including 20 years at Brookhaven.”

Bishai is excited for DUNE’s possible insight into several fundamental questions in physics. Chief among those is why our universe is made of matter, or as she put it, “why we are here.” DUNE will allow scientists to look for differences between how neutrinos and their antimatter opposites, antineutrinos, behave. Finding a difference could help explain why the early universe — which should have contained the two in equal, mutually annihilating amounts — somehow favored the existence and persistence of matter. Observations by terrestrial detectors like DUNE of the energy and time distributions of neutrinos emitted by the Sun or during the explosion of a nearby supernova will also provide a clearer picture of how stars work.

Bishai’s outlook and enthusiasm extend beyond the science to the scientists themselves. “The most fun of all,” she said, has been guiding the next generation of researchers. “As a mentor, I am making sure that my students are integrated, making sure they understand what they’re doing, and I’m trying to talk about careers a lot,” she shared.

Detection detective

Brookhaven scientists have been at the forefront of neutrino research for decades, developing complex detector technologies, including giant liquid argon-filled detectors and the cold microelectronics that read out their signals. Bishai’s work builds on that legacy.

“Brookhaven is where the first successful neutrino beam from an accelerator was produced as part of a Nobel Prize-winning experiment that established that neutrinos have ‘flavors,’ or different types. This was followed by Ray Davis’ groundbreaking Nobel Prize-winning experiment to detect solar neutrinos using a massive detector underground in the former Homestake Gold Mine in South Dakota. That experiment produced the first hint that neutrinos oscillate, or change, between different flavors. DUNE is the latest generation, using accelerator-produced neutrinos to further study neutrino flavor oscillations to learn more about our universe,” Bishai said.

Part of the challenge with all these experiments is that neutrinos have extraordinarily little mass, no charge at all, and interact with matter only rarely. So how exactly do scientists measure a chargeless particle that can fly through walls with ease while shapeshifting among three known flavors? The key is in detecting “fingerprints” neutrinos leave in the argon bath.

As in many of the earlier experiments, DUNE’s detectors will be deep underground to filter out other types of particle interactions. When incoming neutrinos enter the chilly, 87 Kelvin (-303 degrees Fahrenheit) pool of liquid argon, they’ll very occasionally interact with one of the argon atoms. Those interactions kick various charged particles out of the argon nuclei. Next, the charged particles set off a cascade of ionization, knocking electrons off more atoms in the argon bath. The interactions of the initial neutrino and the secondary charged particles with argon also generate flashes of light.

Scientists match the flashes of light, which travel almost instantaneously through the detector, with the later arrival of electrons freed by ionization as they strike electrodes on the sides of the detector.

“Because you know how fast it takes for the charge to go, and you know when the interaction happened from the flash of light, you can figure out exactly where the interaction took place inside the detector, and you can use computers to reconstruct the tracks,” Bishai said.

Then, it’s about fitting the puzzle pieces together. Since each neutrino produces different types of tracks, these tracks can be analyzed to pinpoint the flavor of the neutrino that created each track.

Keeping it inclusive — for data and people

Bishai has been recognized for being a relentless champion for the science of neutrinos and the scientific program of the DUNE experiment, starting from her role as project scientist when the DUNE collaboration was first formed in 2015 and subsequently as a leader of various physics working groups in the collaboration.

Throughout her career, and as DUNE co-spokesperson, she has worked consistently to bring others into the field.

As an example, she has mentored more than 20 young scientists, mostly through the DOE-funded Science Undergraduate Laboratory Internship program at Brookhaven Lab and students who visited Brookhaven while participating in the African School of Physics. Bishai recalled how she worked with students to test hundreds of DUNE’s cold microelectronic chips by dipping them in liquid nitrogen that’s nearly as cold as the liquid argon will be.

“I learn more when I teach because I have to dig deep into the science myself, dig deep into the technical issues, to be able to then translate it into simpler concepts,” she said.

Bishai believes that giving students a chance to participate in DUNE — not just her own students but those of many scientists connected with the project — will help produce a workforce adept at “organizing large, collaborative, multidisciplinary efforts across the world.”

The cornerstone of a project this size is indeed making everyone feel welcome and ensuring that collaborators around the globe have access to the scientific data. “DUNE is moving to a very distributed approach in terms of analyzing and accessing data internationally,” she said.

Bishai is also working to cultivate an inclusive team atmosphere. As DUNE co-spokesperson, she helped launch a DUNE inclusion, diversity, equity, and accessibility group that is gathering demographic information and programs activities to increase representation.

Another initiative was instituting an orientation session at certain DUNE collaboration meetings. “Anybody who wants to come can learn about how collaboration decisions are made and how to join in the decision-making process,” Bishai said.

She has additionally prioritized increased involvement of early career staff, including members of the Young DUNE group, on DUNE committees and decision-making bodies. Bishai tries to make herself available to all collaboration members through both formal Q&A sessions and informal messaging platforms and email.

“Being co-spokesperson of the DUNE collaboration, you are elected to serve all collaborators regardless of seniority,” she said. “You have to lead by building consensus among a group of equals.”

Bishai earned her Bachelor of Arts in physics at the University of Colorado, Boulder in 1991. She received her Master of Science and Ph.D., both in physics, from Purdue University in 1993 and 1999, respectively. She was a research associate at DOE’s Fermilab in 1998 until she joined Brookhaven as an assistant physicist in 2004. She rose through the ranks and has been a senior physicist since 2015. Bishai has played many roles in laying the foundation for a U.S.-based long-baseline neutrino experiment and became DUNE Collaboration co-spokesperson in 2023. In 2014, she was named Woman of the Year in Science by the Town of Brookhaven, and in 2015, she was elected a fellow of the American Physical Society.

Brookhaven National Laboratory is supported by the Office of Science of the U.S. Department of Energy. The Office of Science is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States and is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time.

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Battery chemist Xiao-Qing Yang (left) with colleagues Enyuan Hu and Eli Stavitski at the Inner-Shell Spectroscopy (ISS) beamline of the National Synchrotron Light Source-II at Brookhaven National Laboratory. (Brookhaven National Laboratory)

Longer lasting batteries would allow electric vehicles (EVs) to drive farther and perhaps inspire more people to make the switch from fossil fuels. One key to better EV batteries is understanding the intricate details of how they work — and stop working.

Xiao-Qing Yang, a physicist who leads the Electrochemical Energy Storage group within the Chemistry Division at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory, has spent a good deal of his professional career doing just that. DOE’s Vehicle Technologies Office (VTO) recently recognized his contributions with a Distinguished Achievement Award presented during its 2024 Annual Merit Review. Each year, VTO presents awards to individuals from partner institutions for contributions to overall program efforts and to recognize research, development, demonstration, and deployment achievements in specific areas.

Yang was honored “for pioneering [the use of] advanced characterization tools, such as in situ X-ray diffraction and absorption, to analyze battery materials under operational and extreme conditions in support of VTO battery research and development (R&D) at Brookhaven National Laboratory over the last 38 years.”

These techniques use intense beams of X-rays — for example, at Brookhaven Lab’s National Synchrotron Light Source II (NSLS-II) — to study the atomic-level structure and chemical and electronic characteristics of battery materials in real time as the batteries charge and discharge under real-world operating conditions over repeated cycles. The use of these methods has been adopted at other synchrotrons throughout the DOE complex of national laboratories to provide scientists with a fundamental understanding of the relationship between the structure and the performance of battery systems. This research also provides guidance and approaches to design and synthesize new improved materials.

“This award recognizes the efforts of and honors the whole Electrochemical Energy Storage group, not just me,” said Yang. “Throughout my career, my goal has been to design and synthesize new high-energy materials with improved power density, longer cycle and calendar lives, and good safety characteristics,” he noted. “It’s great to see these efforts recognized as we try to move toward increased use of electric vehicles to meet our transportation needs.”

Xiao-Qing Yang earned a Bachelor of Science degree in material science from Shannxi Mechanic Engineering Institute in China in 1976 and a Ph.D. in physics from the University of Florida, Gainesville, in 1986. He joined Brookhaven Lab’s Materials Science Department in 1986 and rose through the ranks, serving as a Principal Investigator (PI) in materials science from 1993-2005. Since then, he has been a PI in the Lab’s Chemistry Department (now Division), serving as group leader for the Electrochemical Energy Storage Group and as a lead PI and coordinator for several battery research programs funded by VTO within DOE’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, including the Battery500 consortium. He received the 2012 Vehicle Technologies Program R&D Award and the 2015 International Battery Materials Association (IBA) Research Award. He is a member of the Board of Directors of both IBA and IMLB LLC, the organization that runs international meetings for lithium battery researchers, and he has served as an organizer and invited speaker at these and many other conferences.

Brookhaven National Laboratory is supported by the Office of Science of the U.S. Department of Energy. The Office of Science is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States and is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, visit science.energy.gov [https://www.energy.gov/science/].

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Daniel Marx in front of one of the magnets at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider at Brookhaven National Laboratory. Photo courtesy of BNL

By Daniel Dunaief

In a world filled with disagreements over everything from presidential politics to parking places, numbers — and particularly constants — can offer immutable comfort, as people across borders and political parties can find the kind of common ground that make discoveries and innovations possible.

Many of these numbers aren’t simple, as anyone who has taken a geometry class would know. Pi, for example, which describes the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter, isn’t just 3 or 3.14.

In classes around the world, people challenge their memory of numbers and sequences by reciting as many digits of this irrational number as possible. An irrational number can’t be expressed as a fraction.

These irrational numbers can and do inform the world well outside of textbooks and math tests, making it possible for, say, electromagnetic radiation to share information across a parallel world or, in earlier parlance, the ether.

“All electronic communication is made up of waves, sines and cosines, that are defined and evaluated using pi,” said Alan Tucker, Toll Distinguished Teaching Professor in the Department of Applied Mathematics and Statistics at Stony Brook University. The circuits that send and receive information are “based on calculations using pi.”

Scientists can receive signals from the Voyager spacecraft, launched in 1977 and now over seven billion miles away, thanks to the ability to tune a circuit using math that relies on pi and numerous mathematical formulas where the sensitivity to the signal is infinite.

The signal from the spacecraft, which is over 16 years older than the average-aged person on the planet, takes about 10 hours to travel back and forth.

“Think of 1/x, where x goes to 0,” explained Tucker. “Scientists have taken that infinity to be an infinite multiplier of weak signals that can be understood.”

Closer to Earth, the internet, radio waves and TV, among myriad other electronic devices, all use generated and decoded calculations using pi.

“All space has an unseen mathematical existence that nobody can see,” said Tucker. “These are heavily based on calculations involving pi.”

Properties of nature

Constants reflect the realities of the world. They have “a property that is fundamental and absolute and that no one could change,” said Steve Skiena, Distinguished Teaching Professor of Computer Science at Stony Brook University. “The reason people discovered these constants as being important is because they are relating things that arise in the world.”

While pi may be among the best known and most oft-discussed constant, it’s not alone in measuring and understanding the world and in helping scientists anticipate, calculate and understand their experiments.

Chemists, for example, design reactions using a standard unit of measure called the mole, which is also called Avogadro’s number for the Italian physicist Amedeo Avogadro.

The mole provides a way to balance equations, enabling chemists to determine exactly how much of each reactant to combine to get a specific amount of product.

This huge number, which is often expressed as 6.022 times 10 to the 23rd power, represents the number of atoms in 12 grams of carbon 12. The units can be electrons, ions, atoms or molecules.

“Without Avogadro’s number, it would be impossible to determine the ratio of particular reactants,” said Elliot Smith, a postdoctoral researcher at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory who works in John Moses’s lab. “You could take an educated guess, but you wouldn’t get good results.”

Smith often uses millimoles, or 1/1000th of a mole, in the chemical reactions he does.

“If we know the millimoles of each reactant, we can calculate the expected yield,” said Smith. “Without that, you’re fumbling in the dark.”

Indeed, efficient chemical reactions make it possible to synthesize greater amounts of some of the pharmaceutical products that protect human health.

Moles, or millimoles, in a reaction also make it possible to question why a result deviated from expectations. 

Almost the speed of light

Physicists use numerous constants.

“In physics, it is inescapable that you will have to deal with some of the fundamental constants,” said Alan Calder, Professor of Physics and Astronomy at Stony Brook University.

When he models stellar explosions, he uses the speed of light and Newton’s gravitational constant, which relates the gravitational force between two objects to the product of their masses divided by the square of the distance between them.

The stars Calder studies are gas ball reactions that also involve constants.

Stars have thermonuclear reactions going on in them as they evolve. Calder uses reaction rates that depend on local conditions like temperature, but there are constants in these.

Calder’s favorite number is e, or Euler’s constant. This number, which is about 2.71828, is useful in calculating interest in a bank account as well as in understanding the width of successive layers in a snail shell among many other phenomena in nature.

Electron Ion Collider

The speed of light figures prominently in the development and calculations at Brookhaven National Laboratory as the lab prepares to build the unique Electron Ion Collider, which is expected to cost between $1.7 billion and $2.8 billion.

The EIC, which will take about 10 years to construct, will collide a beam of electrons with a beam of ions to answer basic questions about the atomic nucleus.

“It’s one of the most exciting projects in the world,” said Daniel Marx, an accelerator physicist in the Electron Ion Collider accelerator design group at BNL.

At the EIC, physicists expect to propel the electrons, which are 2,000 times lighter than protons, extremely close to the speed of light. In fact, they will travel at 99.999999 (yes, that’s six nines after the decimal point) of the speed of light, which, by the way, is 186,282 miles per second. That means that light can circle the globe 7.48 times per second.

The EIC will increase the energy of ions to 99.999% of the speed of light. With only three nines after the decimal, the protons will be traveling at a slower enough speed that the designers of the collider will make the proton ring about 4 inches shorter over 2.4 miles to ensure that the protons and electrons arrive at exactly the same time.

The EIC will attempt to answer questions about the mass and spin of the nucleus. They hope to understand what happens with dense systems of gluons. By accelerating nuclei or protons to higher energies, they will get more gluons and will look for evidence of gluon saturation.

“The speed of light is absolutely fundamental to everything we do,” said Marx because it is fundamental to relativity and the particles in the accelerator are relativistic.

As for constants, Marx suggested that its value might look like a row of random numbers, but if those numbers are a bit different, that could “revolutionize” an understanding of physics.

In addition to a detailed understanding of atomic nuclei, the EIC could also lead to new technologies.

When JJ Thomson discovered the electron, he toasted it by saying, “may it never be of use to anyone.” That, however, is far from the case, as the electron is at the heart of electronics.

As for pi, Marx, like many of his STEM colleagues, appreciates this constant.

“Once you look at the mathematical statement of pi, and how it relates in various ways to other quantities in math and physics, it deepens your appreciation of how beautiful the whole universe is,” Marx said.

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Eden Campbell, center, won the top spot among kindergarten projects. Photo by Kevin Coughlin/BNL
Eden Campbell
Milan Patel
Advika Arun
Isla Cone
Jude Roseto
Luke Dinsman
Owen Stone

More than 250 students from 65 Suffolk County schools entered science projects in the 2024 Elementary School Science Fair hosted by the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory on June 8.

Students used the scientific method to explore all kinds of questions about their favorite things and the world around them. The annual fair organized by Brookhaven Lab’s Office of Educational Programs celebrated and showcased all projects submitted, ranging from finding the best detangler for Barbie dolls’ hair to using a hand-crafted wind tunnel to test wing shapes for the best lift.

“Our judges enjoyed reading through the projects and were impressed with questions, ideas, and designs,” Amanda Horn, a Brookhaven Lab administrator who coordinated the science fair, said before announcing the winning projects. “We certainly have some future scientists and engineers here today.”

Local teachers and Lab staff volunteered as judges to pick the top spots and honorable mentions for each grade level, from kindergarten to sixth grade. The competition also included a Judges’ Choice award for creative questions.

Students who earned first place in their grade level received medals and ribbons, along with banners to hang at their school to recognize the achievement. All participants received a ribbon in recognition of having won their grade level competition at their school.

Science Fair awards

The following students earned first place in their grade level: 

◆ Kindergartener Eden Campbell, Ocean Avenue Elementary School in Northport for “Tasting Color.” Eden’s project explored whether the color of food affects its taste. What was her favorite part of the experiment? “Eating the jellybeans,” she said.

◆ First grader Milan Patel, Ocean Avenue Elementary School in Northport for “How Does the Direction of a House Affect the Amount of Heat Absorbed from the Sun?” 

◆ Second grader Advika Arun, Bretton Woods Elementary School in Hauppauge, for “Slower and Steadier the Safer it Will Be.” For her experiment, Advika crafted small parachutes to test which materials fostered a slow and safe landing. She found that nylon worked the best. “I liked the part where we dropped them and we saw the speed they went,” she said. She added of her first-place win, “I’m really excited!”

◆ Third grader Isla Cone, Love of Learning Montessori School in Centerport, for “The Impact of pH on Boba.” Isla tested food-friendly liquids with different pH levels to find out which could form boba, the round and chewy pearls found in bubble tea. She confirmed that boba spheres occurred in liquids with a pH between 4 and 10. “I wanted to do a project that was related to food,” she said. “My favorite part was getting to eat all the stuff!”

◆ Fourth grader Jude Roseto, Cutchogue East Elementary School in Cutchogue, for “Rise of the Machines: AI vs. Human Creativity Writing.” 

◆ Fifth grader Luke Dinsman, Northport Middle School in Northport, for “Maximizing Moisture — Nature Knows Best.” In his project, Dinsman found that homemade, natural moisturizers worked better than store-bought lotions at treating the dry skin he experiences as a swimmer. A shea body butter with beeswax turned out to be the best option. Making the lotions and testing them was the best part of the process, Luke said. He added, “It’s just a really cool project.”

◆ Sixth grader Owen Stone, East Quogue Elementary in East Quogue for “Can Common Foods Help Grow Potatoes?” 

Judges’ choice

Kindergarten: John Jantzen, Sunrise Drive Elementary School in Sayville

First Grade: Julianna Zick, West Middle Island Elementary School in Middle Island

Second Grade: Timothy Donoghue, Riley Avenue Elementary School in Calverton

Third Grade: Charlotte Sheahan, Pulaski Road School in East Northport

Fourth Grade: Dominick Padolecchia, Sunrise Drive Elementary School in Sayville

Fifth Grade: Isabella Maharlouei, Raynor Country Day School in Speonk

Sixth Grade: Zoe Wood, Northport Middle School in Northport

Honorable mentions

Kindergarten: Michael McCarthy, Pines Elementary School in Smithtown; Scarlett Luna, Hampton Bays Elementary School in Hampton Bays; Autumn Vlacci, Riley Avenue Elementary School in Calverton

First Grade: Tyler Paino, Bretton Woods Elementary School in Hauppauge; Logan Pierre, Brookhaven Elementary School in Brookhaven; Nora Boecherer, Edna Louise Spear Elementary School in Port Jefferson

Second Grade: Charlotte Tholl, Forest Brook Elementary School; Gabi Opisso, Cutchogue East Elementary School in Cutchogue; Matthew Ingram, Ocean Avenue Elementary School in Northport; Erios Pikramenos, Frank J. Carasiti Elementary School in Rocky Point; Maya Salman, Edna Louise Spear Elementary School in Port Jefferson

Third Grade: Emma Puccio Edelman, Hiawatha Elementary School in Lake Ronkonkoma; Vincent Calvanese, Pines Elementary School in Smithtown; Kaylee Krawchuck, Ridge Elementary School in Ridge; Isabella Guldi, Joseph A. Edgar Intermediate School in Rocky Point

Fourth Grade: Juliam Gianmugnai, Ridge Elementary School in Ridge; Joseph Frederick, Lincoln Avenue Elementary School in Sayville; Gabriel Affatato, Pulaski Road School East Northport; Levi Beaver, Raynor Country Day School in Speonk

Fifth Grade: Evangeline Jamros, Edna Louise Spear Elementary in Port Jefferson; Colette Breig, RJO Intermediate School in Kings Park; Riona Mittal, Bretton Woods Elementary School in Hauppauge

Sixth Grade: Eamon Ryan, Lindenhurst Middle School in Lindenhurst; Michael Mineo, Silas Wood 6th Grade Center in Huntington Station; Alex Uihlein, Montauk Public School in Montauk.

Science Fair Expo

While their projects were on display, students and their families browsed a Science Fair Expo that featured up-close, hands-on demonstrations guided by Brookhaven Lab staff, interns, and volunteers.

The activities connected to science concepts and tools found across the Lab, from magnets and particle accelerators to electron microscopy and conductors. Students peered through microscopes, learned how fuel cells and solar panels work, became junior beamline operators, and more.

 

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F. William Studier, senior scientist emeritus at Brookhaven National Laboratory, in 2004. (Roger Stoutenburgh/Brookhaven National Laboratory)

Prestigious honor recognizes development of widely used protein- and RNA-production platform

F. William Studier, a senior biophysicist emeritus at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory, has won the 2024 Richard N. Merkin Prize in Biomedical Technology [https://merkinprize.org/] for his development in the 1980s of an efficient, scalable method of producing RNA and proteins in the laboratory. His “T7 expression” technology can be used to make large quantities of nearly any RNA or protein and has been for decades, and continues to be, a mainstay of biomedical research and pharmaceutical production. Studier’s approach has been used to produce numerous therapeutics, diagnostics, and vaccines — including the COVID-19 mRNA vaccines credited with extending millions of lives in recent years [see: https://www.bnl.gov/newsroom/news.php?a=218806].

“F. William Studier’s brilliant work on the T7 system transformed biomedicine, saving millions of lives globally and improving the chances for further research that will change healthcare delivery,” said Dr. Richard Merkin, CEO and founder of Heritage Provider Network, one of the country’s largest physician-owned integrated health care systems. “His work exemplifies why I created this prize initiative that honors and showcases amazing innovators like Bill. I’m honored to be celebrating his remarkable achievements.”

The Merkin Prize, inaugurated in 2023, recognizes novel technologies that have improved human health. It carries a $400,000 cash award and is administered by the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, one of the world’s leading biomedical research institutes. All nominations for the 2024 Merkin Prize were evaluated by a selection committee composed of nine scientific leaders from academia and industry in the U.S. and Europe. Studier will be honored in a prize ceremony held on Sept. 17, 2024.

“The T7 system has been influential in biomedicine and has had important clinical implications for many years, but Bill Studier’s contribution to the field has really not been as celebrated as it ought to be,” said Harold Varmus, chair of the Merkin Prize selection committee. Varmus is also the Lewis Thomas University Professor at Weill Cornell Medicine, a senior associate at the New York Genome Center, and a recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his work on the origins of cancer.

“Bill Studier’s development of T7 phage RNA polymerase for use in preparing RNA templates for multiple uses in research labs worldwide has been a truly revolutionary technical advance for the entire field of molecular biology,” said Joan Steitz, the Sterling Professor of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry at Yale University.

“Today, virtually every protein you want to produce in bacteria is made with a T7 system,” said Venki Ramakrishnan of the Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, England, and a winner of the 2009 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. “There’s not a single molecular biology or biochemistry lab I know that doesn’t use T7.”

“This award is a great honor for Bill Studier, recognizing the significance of the research and technology he pioneered. It reinforces how basic research — asking fundamental questions about the way the world and everything in it works — can result in important and unexpected advances that continue to have impact even decades after the initial discoveries,” said Brookhaven National Laboratory Director JoAnne Hewett. “It is fabulous to see Bill recognized for his lifetime of work and the critical role it has played in biotechnology and medicine.”

Studier’s T7 expression system uses the T7 promoter to “turn on” a gene of interest and the T7 RNA polymerase to transcribe that gene into messenger RNA (mRNA) so that E. coli ribosomes can use the RNA-encoded information to synthesize the desired protein. The system can also be used to make desired mRNAs as, for example, was done to make the COVID-19 mRNA vaccines. (Tiffany Bowman/Brookhaven National Laboratory)



Driven by basic biology

Studier grew up in Iowa and became fascinated with biophysics while an undergraduate at Yale University. Then, during graduate school at the California Institute of Technology in the early 1960s, he was introduced to bacteriophage T7, a virus that infects Escherichia coli bacteria. He wondered how T7 could so effectively and quickly take over E. coli, rapidly turning the bacterial cells into factories to produce more copies of itself. That question launched a career focused on the basic biology of T7.

“I’ve always been interested in solving problems,” Studier told Brookhaven National Laboratory in a 2011 profile [https://www.bnl.gov/newsroom/news.php?a=22241]. “The motivation for my research is not commercial application. My interest is in basic research.”

When he joined Brookhaven Lab in 1964, Studier focused on sequencing the genes of the T7 bacteriophage and understanding the function of each of its corresponding proteins during infection of E. coli. By 1984, he and Brookhaven colleague John Dunn successfully identified and cloned the protein within T7 that was responsible for rapidly copying T7 DNA into many corresponding strands of RNA [see: https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.81.7.2035]. RNA is the molecule that instructs cells which amino acids to link up to build a particular protein — a critical step in protein synthesis and therefore the bacteriophage’s ability to infect E. coli.

Studier realized that the protein, called the T7 RNA polymerase, might be able to quickly and efficiently produce RNA from not only T7 DNA but also from the genes of any organism. If a gene was tagged with a special DNA sequence, known as the T7 promoter, then the T7 RNA polymerase would latch on and begin copying it. In 1986, Studier described this system in the Journal of Molecular Biology [https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/3537305/].

“His work really illustrates that sometimes a remarkable technology can emerge not only from people trying to build technologies but from someone who is trying to use basic science to understand a fascinating biological phenomenon,” Varmus said.

Speeding science

Before Studier’s development of the T7 system, scientists who wanted to produce RNA or proteins generally inserted the genes into the natural E. coli genome and let the E. coli polymerase produce the corresponding RNA at the same time as the bacteria produced its own RNA and proteins. But the E. coli machinery was relatively slow, and scientists often ran into problems with the bacteria turning off their DNA-reading programs. T7 polymerase overcame both these problems: It was far faster, and E. coli had no built-in way to shut it off.

Within a few years, biologists had rapidly switched from their older methods to the T7 system for producing both RNA and proteins. When proteins are the desired end result, the E. coli molecular machinery for translating mRNA into proteins is used after the T7 system makes the RNA.

Studier continued studying the T7 polymerase and promoter, fine-tuning the system for years and publishing new improved versions as recently as 2018.

As of 2020, the T7 technology had been cited in more than 220,000 published studies, with 12,000 new studies using the technology published each year. There are more than 100 different versions of the T7 technology available commercially and 12 patents in Studier’s name related to the system.

Making medicine

The T7 technology has also had immediate impacts in industry, with more than 900 biotech and pharmaceutical companies licensing it to produce therapeutics and vaccines.

In 2020, scientists used the T7 platform to produce enough mRNA for COVID-19 vaccines to vaccinate millions of people in the U.S. and around the world. With the T7 promoter placed next to the gene for the COVID-19 spike protein, the T7 polymerase could generate many kilograms of mRNA — the active molecule in the vaccines — at a time.

“I think it’s an incredible testament to this technology that, decades after its development, it’s still the go-to method for RNA and protein production,” said John Shanklin, a distinguished biochemist and chair of the Biology Department at Brookhaven National Laboratory, who considered Studier a mentor for many years.

Those who know Studier say the Merkin Prize is well-deserved; Studier changed the course of biomedicine while working quietly on basic science questions that interested him.

“Almost no one has heard of Bill Studier because he is a quiet, modest guy who had a small lab,” said Ramakrishnan, who worked with Studier at Brookhaven in the 1980s. “But he is an absolutely fantastic role model of what a scientist should be like.”

“He has flown under the radar and hasn’t been recognized for his accomplishments very much,” Shanklin agreed. “This is a well-deserved honor.”

Studier was also committed to guaranteeing access to his technology. When Brookhaven was in the process of licensing and commercializing the T7 system shortly after its development, Studier ensured that it remained free for academic labs while charging commercial licensing fees to companies.

F. William Studier earned a bachelor’s degree in biophysics from Yale in 1958, followed by a Ph.D. from the California Institute of Technology in 1963. He worked as a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Biochemistry at Stanford University School of Medicine, and then he joined Brookhaven Lab’s Biology Department in 1964 as an assistant biophysicist. Over the years, Studier rose through the department’s ranks, receiving tenure in 1971 and becoming a tenured senior biophysicist in 1974.

He served as chair of the Biology Department from 1990 to 1999 and then returned to research. He also served as an adjunct professor of biochemistry at Stony Brook University. His achievements have been recognized by election to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1990, the National Academy of Sciences in 1992, and as a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2007. He retired from the Lab in 2015 and was named senior scientist emeritus. In 2018, he was elected as a Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors. He holds 15 patents of which nine have been licensed and commercialized, including those on the T7 system.

Studier’s research at Brookhaven Lab was supported by the DOE Office of Science.


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From left, Dmitri Denisov and Anatoly Frenkel (Brookhaven National Laboratory)

       Honor recognizes distinguished contributions to particle physics, chemistry, and materials science

The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) has recognized two staff scientists from the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory with the distinction of Fellow: Deputy Associate Laboratory Director for High Energy Physics Dmitri Denisov and Senior Chemist Anatoly Frenkel. Each year, AAAS bestows this honor on select members whose “efforts on behalf of the advancement of science, or its applications, are scientifically or socially distinguished.” Marking the 150th anniversary of the program, new fellows will be honored at a forum on September 21, 2024, at the National Building Museum in Washington, D.C.

AAAS is the world’s largest general scientific society and publisher of the Science family of journals. The tradition of naming Fellows stretches back to 1874. AAAS Fellows are a distinguished cadre of scientists, engineers, and innovators who have been recognized for their achievements across disciplines ranging from research, teaching, and technology, to administration in academia, industry, and government, to excellence in communicating and interpreting science to the public. Denisov and Frenkel are two of 502 scientists, engineers, and innovators spanning 24 scientific disciplines who are being recognized as members of the 2023 class of AAAS Fellows.

Dmitri Denisov

Denisov has been a long-time leader in particle physics, a field in which experiments often run for decades and a discovery can rewrite an entire science program — and therefore, it can be challenging to plan ahead. Denisov’s strategic guidance and many advisory roles have significantly shaped the future of particle physics in the U.S. and around the world.

He was recognized by AAAS for “distinguished contributions to particle physics through experiments at high energy colliders, and for guidance of the field through numerous management and advisory roles.”

“Research in particle physics advances our understanding of the universe at every level, from its smallest particles like quarks and leptons to its largest objects like galaxies,” Denisov said. “My experience leading institutions and experiments that help uncover these mysteries has been deeply rewarding. In addition to developing the unique facilities, accelerators, detectors, and computational techniques that enable this research, I’ve had the pleasure to collaborate with many international partners — and those team efforts are a critical component of the field’s success. I am flattered to be recognized with AAAS fellowship and looking forward to continuing my contributions to the particle physics community and AAAS.”

Currently overseeing Brookhaven’s world-leading high energy physics program as a deputy associate laboratory director, Denisov is responsible for the Lab’s strategic plan for exploring the universe at its smallest and largest scales. Central to the program is close cooperation with other U.S. laboratories, the international particle physics community, and funding agencies. By balancing those complex collaborations with available funding and international priorities set forth by the High Energy Physics Advisory Panel’s P5 report, Denisov ensures Brookhaven contributes its expertise and cutting-edge capabilities to the world’s most pressing particle physics questions in the most valuable ways.

Under Denisov’s leadership, Brookhaven Lab continues the important role as the U.S. host laboratory for the ATLAS experiment at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the world’s highest energy particle accelerator. The Lab participates in many areas of the ATLAS experiment, such as construction, project management, data storage and distribution, and experiment operations. Brookhaven is leading the U.S. contribution to a major upgrade to the ATLAS detector and construction of superconducting magnets in preparation for the LHC’s high-luminosity upgrade.

Denisov also oversees Brookhaven’s important roles in the upcoming Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE) based at DOE’s Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab) and the Sanford Underground Research Facility, from design and construction to operations and analyses. DUNE scientists will search for new subatomic phenomena that could transform our understanding of neutrinos.

Denisov provides crucial support for other international experiments that the Lab’s high energy physics program actively participates in. These include the Belle II experiment at Japan’s SuperKEKB particle collider, for which Brookhaven provides critical computing and software, and the Rubin Observatory that is currently under construction in Chile. Once the Rubin Observatory begins capturing the data from the cosmos, physicists in Brookhaven’s high energy program will take on roles involving operations, scientific analysis, and computing.

At home at Brookhaven, Denisov oversees the Physics Department’s contributions toward a new collaborative effort between DOE and NASA that aims to land and operate a radio telescope on the lunar far side. Called LuSEE-Night, the project marks the first step towards exploring the Dark Ages of the universe, an early era of cosmological history that’s never been observed before. LuSEE-Night’s goal is to access lingering radio waves from the Dark Ages — a period starting about 380,000 years after the Big Bang — by operating in the unique environment of radio silence that the lunar far side offers.

All the while, scientists in the Lab’s high energy physics program under Denisov’s leadership are regularly pioneering new detector technologies, software, and computing solutions that could be used for future particle physics facilities and experiments — and other scientific efforts beyond the field of high energy physics.

“We are thrilled by Dmitri’s distinct recognition by the AAAS Fellowship and look forward to his continuing leadership of Brookhaven’s high energy physics program in the coming years following the 2023 P5 recommendations,” said Haiyan Gao, Brookhaven Lab’s associate laboratory director for nuclear and particle physics.

Before arriving at Brookhaven Lab, Denisov contributed 25 years to the high energy physics program at Fermilab. There, he was most prominently known for serving as the spokesperson for the DZero experiment, which used Fermilab’s Tevatron collider to study the interactions of protons and antiprotons. Denisov led the collaboration of scientists from 24 countries and oversaw publication of over 300 scientific papers written by the collaboration. Strong contributions from Brookhaven’s DZero group were critical for the success of the experiment.

Denisov earned his master’s degree in physics and engineering from the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology in 1984 and a Ph.D. in particle physics from the Institute for High Energy Physics in Protvino in 1991. Before joining Fermilab in 1994, he was a staff scientist at the Institute for High Energy Physics and the SSC Laboratory.

Anatoly Frenkel

Anatoly Frenkel is a senior chemist in the Structure and Dynamics of Applied Nanomaterials group of Brookhaven Lab’s Chemistry Division and a professor in the Department of Materials Science and Chemical Engineering at Stony Brook University (SBU). He is also an affiliated faculty member in SBU’s Department of Chemistry and Institute for Advanced Computational Science.

He was recognized by AAAS for “distinguished contributions to the development and applications of in situ and operando synchrotron methods to solve a wide range of problems in chemistry and materials science.”

“It is an honor to have been nominated and elected to be an AAAS fellow,” Frenkel said. “This recognition reflects on more than two decades of work, going back to the time we first learned how to analyze nanostructures, then properties, and, finally, mechanisms in different types of functional nanomaterials.”

Frenkel’s research focuses on understanding the physicochemical properties of nanocatalysts — materials with features on the scale of billionths of a meter that can speed up or lower the energy requirements of chemical reactions. He’s particularly interested in understanding how materials’ physical structure and other properties relate to their functional performance, the mechanisms of catalytic reactions, and the mechanisms of work in electromechanical materials. He is a long-time user of the National Synchrotron Light Source II (NSLS-II), a DOE Office of Science user facility at Brookhaven Lab that produces bright beams of X-rays and other forms of light that scientists use to learn about material properties.

Over the course of his career, Frenkel has developed new approaches for studying materials while they are operating under real-world conditions — known as in situ/operando research. In this work, he uses synchrotron techniques, such as X-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS), X-ray imaging, and X-ray diffraction — all at NSLS-II — as well as advanced electron microscopy techniques at Brookhaven Lab’s Center for Functional Nanomaterials (CFN), another DOE Office of Science user facility. These studies provide detailed insight into materials’ performance and may guide the design of new materials with improved functionality for a wide range of applications. Frenkel has also advanced the use of machine learning and other forms of artificial intelligence to discover important material properties purely from their experimental X-ray signatures. Recent examples include studies to understand how catalysts change as they operate under harsh conditions and to discover ones that could potentially convert carbon dioxide (CO2) into useful products.

“Anatoly’s work to probe how catalysts convert waste products, such as the greenhouse gas CO2, into useful products is important to our efforts in clean energy research at Brookhaven, and it is well deserving of this award,” said John Gordon, chair of the Chemistry Division at Brookhaven Lab.

“Anatoly has been a valued member of our faculty,” said Dilip Gersappe, Stony Brook University Materials Science and Chemical Engineering department chair. “We are thrilled that his pioneering work in developing multi-modal methods for nanomaterial characterization, and the use of novel approaches to identifying spectroscopic signatures through machine learning, has been recognized by this honor.”

Frenkel earned a master’s degree in physics from St. Petersburg University in Russia in 1987 and his Ph.D. from Tel Aviv University in Israel in 1995. He pursued postdoctoral research at the University of Washington, Seattle, and then joined the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign as a research scientist from 1996 to 2001. He served on the faculty of Yeshiva University as a Physics Department chair from 2001 to 2016 and was a visiting scientist (sabbatical appointment) at Brookhaven Lab in 2009. He’s been a joint appointee at Brookhaven and Stony Brook University since 2016.

At Brookhaven, Frenkel has served as spokesperson and co-director of the Synchrotron Catalysis Consortium since 2004, and he’s arranged a series of courses on X-ray absorption spectroscopy held at Brookhaven Lab continuously since 2005 and at various institutions around the world. He is a fellow of the American Physical Society (2017) and has held a series of visiting professor fellowships at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel.

Brookhaven National Laboratory is supported by the Office of Science of the U.S. Department of Energy. The Office of Science is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States and is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, visit science.energy.gov.

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