Sandia showcases biomanufacturing research at DOE summit

by Paul Rhien

At the Innovation XLab: Biomanufacturing Summit held January 28–29 at the California Memorial Stadium in Berkeley, Sandia joined other Department of Energy national laboratories in showcasing their bioscience research and capabilities before investors, industry, and university partners. The two-day summit, hosted by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, was designed to help bridge the gap between research and commercialization.

Mary Monson, senior manager of technology partnerships and business development, was on hand to visit with conference attendees in the exhibit hall and discuss opportunities to collaborate with Sandia.

“The Innovation XLab summit provided us with an important opportunity to exchange insights and ideas with potential collaborative research partners,” Mary said. “Sandia has a robust intellectual property portfolio in the biosciences, and XLab gave us a chance to put Sandia’s facilities, technologies, and expertise on full display.”

Anup Singh, director of the Chemical, Biological, Radiological, and Nuclear (CBRN) Defense and Energy Technologies Center, added that familiarizing industry participants with the broad spectrum of Sandia’s research capabilities is the first step to creating important new partnerships.

“Sandia is doing groundbreaking work in synthetic biology, biofuels, algae, biosecurity, agriculture, and biomass deconstruction,” Anup said. “Transitioning these scientific discoveries and technologies developed at Sandia to the marketplace accelerates innovation.”

Sandia’s dynamic biological research capability addresses important national security challenges. Sandia’s research in two strategic areas — biomass conversion and biodefense — provides biological solutions to critical challenges in energy, environment, and homeland security.

The conference agenda touched upon ethics, profitability, automation, and artificial intelligence, as well as the future roles of biomanufacturing and synthetic biology in food production and agriculture, biofuels and transportation, bio-based materials, and therapeutics.

The event was the fifth in the DOE’s Innovation XLab series. Events have covered a variety of topics including energy storage, grid modernization, advanced manufacturing, and artificial intelligence.