In a quick and impactful response to the COVID-19 pandemic—an event that has forever changed our perspective on biopreparedness—the DOE Office of Science established the National Virtual Biotechnology Laboratory (NVBL). Harnessing capabilities across all 17 DOE national laboratories, NVBL is an example of how critical advances can be made by leveraging decades of DOE investments in basic science and experimental user facilities—including X-ray and neutron sources, leadership computing facilities, nanoscale science research centers, and biological characterization laboratories.
DOE BER is currently supporting two areas of biopreparedness research:
- Biopreparedness Research Virtual Environment (BRaVE): BRaVE takes advantage of BER’s unique capabilities and facilities in physical, computational, and life sciences and its integrative, cross-disciplinary, and collaborative tradition across experiments, models, and analyses. BRaVE provides a portal through which a distributed network of capabilities and scientists can work together on multidisciplinary and multiprogram priorities to tackle significant DOE mission-relevant science challenges and provide a ready resource to quickly address urgent national emergencies as needed.
- Integrated Biological and Computational Low-Dose Radiation Research: This research focuses on the development of integrated biological and computational research to gain a mechanistic understanding of the effects of low-dose radiation exposure on cellular functions and establish comprehensive datasets amenable to incorporation into increasingly capable (Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning [AI/ML]) models to identify both transient and persistent changes in cellular metabolism that may be linked to adverse health outcomes.