One PPI project, led by Ryan McClure, constructed and characterized an ideal bacterial community where individuals worked together to create an outcome greater than any member could do alone, thereby creating a productive relationship that could be used to help power the bioeconomy. 

The Tecan Fluent installed in BSF will enable the development of autonomous scientific workflows with microbial systems that advance extensible artificial intelligence at PNNL and demonstrate research leadership in support of the U.S. bioeconomy.

Researchers are developing a technique called genetic code expansion to augment bacteria with unnatural amino acids, leading to new bacterial functions.

Researchers are using compartmented dishes with glass beads to inoculate a plant (Medicago truncatula) with arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (Rhizophagus irregularis). The setup allows for a root-free fungal hyphal compartment to measure molecular exchanges between phosphate solubilizing bacteria (Pseudomonas putida) and the fungi using advanced mass-spectrometry based omics.

The project, which is building towards a predictive understanding of molecular interactions between plants, fungi, and bacteria for improving plant nutrient uptake, is part of the lab’s Predictive Phenomics Initiative.

Researcher Pavlo Bohutskyi investigates how dynamic environmental conditions and rhythmic cycles affect photosynthetic microbes. Through predictive phenomics—studying how these organisms produce chemicals and foods like sugars—he uncovers crucial insights into the key regulatory switches governing metabolic pathways. This research reveals how we might manipulate these biological systems to enhance bioproduction for sustainable energy and materials.

Researchers take samples of oleaginous yeast cultivations in bioreactors at the Bioproducts Sciences & Engineering Laboratory as part of a Predictive Phenomics Initiative project. In the experiments, researchers are analyzing bioprocess stress effects on biochemical and lipid production of yeast that typically struggle going from bench top size reactors to industrial ones.