Human Health

A PNNL and national priority

PNNL researchers have processed more than three thousand COVID tests since the pandemic began in 2020. The lab was one of the first in the state authorized to process the samples.

(Image by Andrea Starr | Pacific Northwest National Laboratory)

Scientific advancements have expanded the face of human health. Where there was once treatment of symptoms and guesswork about the cause of disease, there is now prevention and prediction of disease onset.

PNNL biomedical researchers study cancer biology, infectious diseases caused by viruses or bacteria, and other diseases, such as diabetes, that are fundamentally linked to inflammation.

With a better understanding of pathways that maintain or degrade human health, our work informs disease treatment and early detection. It also provides information to guide strategies to mitigate potential health impacts from environmental exposures to chemicals or air pollution. Because our biological expertise is so broad, PNNL can shift research priorities in response to changing national needs.

Advanced ion mobility mass spectrometry and enhanced mass spectrometers at the Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory provide increased sensitivity, precision, and speed for analyzing blood or tissue samples. Our scientists specialize in the development and use of omics technologies, such as metabolomics, lipidomics, and nanoscale proteomics, to gain an unprecedented look at cellular function at the molecular level. The result is massive amounts of data that demand powerful computational tools available at PNNL to understand the results.

PNNL’s biomedical research helps anchor the Laboratory’s biology capabilities and complements its environmental research. Whether our researchers are studying the human body or environmental systems, they dissect the inner workings of biological systems one molecule and one process at a time.

Collaborations

Pacific northwest bioMedical Innovation Co-laboratory—or PMedIC—is a joint research collaboration of the Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU) and PNNL. PMedIC aims to generate, interpret, and integrate multidimensional omics and imaging data with clinical results to gain mechanistic understanding of disease and develop innovative therapies.

The Pacific Northwest Center for Cryo-EM (PNCC) is a state-of-the-art electron microscopy user facility funded by the National Institutes of Health Common Fund and operated jointly by OHSU and PNNL. Its mission is to serve researchers from a diverse range of backgrounds to tackle the most challenging scientific problems and train the next generation of cryo-electron microscopy specialists and users.