For more than 75 years, a network of 17 Department of Energy laboratories has quietly reshaped modern life, from mapping the human genome to discovering 23 new elements on the periodic table. Born during a time of global crisis, these facilities have grown into engines of prosperity and invention, spawning industries, saving lives and revealing the secrets of the universe. Today, they continue to tackle some of humanity’s biggest challenges, from clean energy to clean drinking water.
The laboratories operate 32 of the world’s 500 fastest supercomputers, systems that perform quadrillions of operations per second. These machines model everything from climate change and weather forecasting to the nuclear deterrent, simulating systems that would be too expensive or impossible to test physically. In 1990, lab scientists helped launch the Human Genome Project, an international effort to map all human genes. The same researchers also installed the first web server in North America, helping to spark the development of the worldwide web as we know it.
In medicine, the labs pioneered the field of nuclear medicine, producing radioisotopes to diagnose and treat disease and designing imaging technology that detects cancer while sparing healthy tissue. Their X-ray facilities have contributed more than 100,000 protein structures to the Protein Data Bank, a resource that underpins nearly all new medications. Lab scientists also discovered how genetic instructions are carried to the cell’s protein manufacturing center via messenger RNA, work that later illuminated how transcription errors can cause cancer and birth defects.
Environmental breakthroughs include a long-lasting particle that removes arsenic from drinking water and an ultraviolet light technology that kills water-borne bacteria, reducing child mortality in the developing world. Another innovation: a sponge that can absorb 90 times its own weight in oil from water, can be wrung out and reused hundreds of times, and can collect oil that has sunk below the surface. The labs also developed a lead-free solder made of tin, silver and copper, now licensed by more than 60 companies worldwide, and a self-healing diamond-like film that reduces wear in engines from table fans to giant wind turbines.
From the Cosmos to the Atom
Lab cosmologists discovered dark energy, the mysterious force that makes up three-quarters of the universe and causes its expansion to accelerate. Detectors aboard a NASA satellite revealed the birth of galaxies in the echoes of the Big Bang. Closer to home, lab scientists built the enclosure for the radioisotope thermoelectric generators that power NASA’s Cassini spacecraft and have begun producing plutonium-238 for future missions. They have also discovered 23 elements, including technetium, plutonium and tennessine, and revealed that protons and neutrons are made of even smaller parts called quarks.
Looking ahead, the labs are supporting the next generation of safe, emissions-free nuclear power and developing advanced cathode technology that helped power the Chevy Volt. Next-generation refrigerators may soon use an environmentally friendly alloy instead of harmful chemical coolants. With the same ingenuity that put an American stamp on the last century of science, the National Laboratories are now innovating the future, one breakthrough at a time.