[House Hearing, 116 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
BIOLOGICAL RESEARCH
AT THE DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY:
LEVERAGING DOE'S UNIQUE CAPABILITIES
TO RESPOND TO THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENERGY
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE,
AND TECHNOLOGY
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED SIXTEENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
SEPTEMBER 11, 2020
__________
Serial No. 116-80
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Available via the World Wide Web: http://science.house.gov
__________
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
41-312PDF WASHINGTON : 2020
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COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND TECHNOLOGY
HON. EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas, Chairwoman
ZOE LOFGREN, California FRANK D. LUCAS, Oklahoma,
DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois Ranking Member
SUZANNE BONAMICI, Oregon MO BROOKS, Alabama
AMI BERA, California, BILL POSEY, Florida
Vice Chair RANDY WEBER, Texas
LIZZIE FLETCHER, Texas BRIAN BABIN, Texas
HALEY STEVENS, Michigan ANDY BIGGS, Arizona
KENDRA HORN, Oklahoma ROGER MARSHALL, Kansas
MIKIE SHERRILL, New Jersey RALPH NORMAN, South Carolina
BRAD SHERMAN, California MICHAEL CLOUD, Texas
STEVE COHEN, Tennessee TROY BALDERSON, Ohio
JERRY McNERNEY, California PETE OLSON, Texas
ED PERLMUTTER, Colorado ANTHONY GONZALEZ, Ohio
PAUL TONKO, New York MICHAEL WALTZ, Florida
BILL FOSTER, Illinois JIM BAIRD, Indiana
DON BEYER, Virginia FRANCIS ROONEY, Florida
CHARLIE CRIST, Florida GREGORY F. MURPHY, North Carolina
SEAN CASTEN, Illinois MIKE GARCIA, California
BEN McADAMS, Utah THOMAS P. TIFFANY, Wisconsin
JENNIFER WEXTON, Virginia
CONOR LAMB, Pennsylvania
------
Subcommittee on Energy
HON. LIZZIE FLETCHER, Texas, Chairwoman
DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois RANDY WEBER, Texas, Ranking Member
HALEY STEVENS, Michigan ANDY BIGGS, Arizona
KENDRA HORN, Oklahoma RALPH NORMAN, South Carolina
JERRY McNERNEY, California MICHAEL CLOUD, Texas
BILL FOSTER, Illinois JIM BAIRD, Indiana
SEAN CASTEN, Illinois
CONOR LAMB, Pennsylvania
C O N T E N T S
September 11, 2020
Page
Hearing Charter.................................................. 2
Opening Statements
Statement by Representative Lizzie Fletcher, Chairwoman,
Subcommittee on Energy, Committee on Science, Space, and
Technology, U.S. House of Representatives...................... 6
Written Statement............................................ 7
Statement by Representative Frank D. Lucas, Ranking Member,
Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House of
Representatives................................................ 8
Written Statement............................................ 9
Statement by Representative Eddie Bernice Johnson, Chairwoman,
Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House of
Representatives................................................ 10
Written Statement............................................ 10
Witnesses:
Dr. Mary Maxon, Associate Laboratory Director for Biosciences,
Department of Energy, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Oral Statement............................................... 11
Written Statement............................................ 14
Dr. Debra Mohnen, Professor, Department of Biochemistry and
Molecular Biology, University of Georgia
Oral Statement............................................... 36
Written Statement............................................ 38
Dr. Glenn C. Randall, Chair, Committee on Microbiology, The
University of Chicago
Oral Statement............................................... 46
Written Statement............................................ 48
Dr. Kelly C. Wrighton, Associate Professor, Department of Soil
and Crop Science, Colorado State University
Oral Statement............................................... 55
Written Statement............................................ 57
Discussion....................................................... 61
Appendix: Answers to Post-Hearing Questions
Dr. Mary Maxon, Associate Laboratory Director for Biosciences,
Department of Energy, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.... 78
BIOLOGICAL RESEARCH
AT THE DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY:
LEVERAGING DOE'S UNIQUE CAPABILITIES
TO RESPOND TO THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC
----------
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 11, 2020
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Energy,
Committee on Science, Space, and Technology,
Washington, D.C.
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 1:31 p.m.,
via Webex, Hon. Lizzie Fletcher [Chairwoman of the
Subcommittee] presiding.
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairwoman Fletcher. This hearing will come to order.
Without objection, the Chair is authorized to declare recess at
any time.
Before I deliver my opening remarks, I want to note that
the Committee is meeting today virtually. I want to announce a
couple of reminders to the Members about the conduct of this
hearing. First, Members should keep their video feed on as long
as they are present in the hearing. Members are responsible for
their own microphones. Please keep your microphones muted
unless you are speaking. Finally, if Members have documents
they wish to submit for the record, please email them to the
Committee Clerk, whose email address was circulated prior to
the hearing.
Good afternoon, and welcome to today's hearing on
biological research at the Department of Energy (DOE), where we
will hear about how these capabilities are being leveraged to
respond to the COVID-19 pandemic. I want to thank Ranking
Member Lucas, Members of the Energy Subcommittee, and our
witnesses for joining us today.
Members of this Subcommittee are enthusiastic about the
energy innovations that are coming out of DOE's national
laboratories, and rightfully so, given that the labs have
provided our country with breakthroughs like supercomputing,
inventing new materials, pioneering efficient powerlines,
improving automotive steel, and discovering 22 elements. Yes,
the periodic table would be much smaller without the national
labs.
As the COVID-19 pandemic began to unfold in the United
States, it became apparent that DOE's laboratories and programs
were also well-positioned to help us respond to the virus. It
is perhaps not well-known, but this territory of research is
not new to the labs. In fact, as an example, national lab
scientists developed a non-toxic foam that neutralizes chemical
and biological agents. It was this foam that was used to clean
up the congressional office buildings and mail rooms exposed to
anthrax in 2001.
Lab scientists are also credited for developing the field
of nuclear medicine, producing radioisotopes to diagnose and
treat disease, designing imaging technology to detect cancer,
and developing software to target tumors while sparing healthy
tissue. DOE labs house and operate national user facilities
like the Joint Genome Institute (JGI), established by the
Department in 1997 as part of the Human Genome Project. Today,
institute researchers survey the biosphere and characterize
organisms relevant to the DOE science missions of bioenergy,
global carbon cycling, and biogeochemistry. They also provide
advanced sequencing and computational analysis of genes related
to clean energy generation and environmental characterization
and cleanup. Leveraging these capabilities has enabled
researchers to develop countermeasures against the novel
coronavirus like diagnostic tests and allowed them to assess
transmission and evolution dynamics as the virus spreads
globally.
This hearing will examine the historic reasons for why the
Department possesses advanced bioscience capabilities to
address the Nation's great challenges and to stimulate
innovation, how this expertise and DOE's biological research
tools are being leveraged to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic,
and what future directions for the Department's biological
system research can provide solutions for our Nation's most
pressing issues.
I look forward to hearing from our witnesses sharing their
expertise on these topics, as well as hearing how the Science
Committee can best support DOE's biological research activities
to unleash the next generation of innovation.
[The prepared statement of Chairwoman Fletcher follows:]
Good afternoon and welcome to today's hearing on biological
research at the Department of Energy, where we will hear about
how these capabilities are being leveraged to respond to the
COVID-19 pandemic. I want to thank Ranking Member Lucas,
Members of the Energy Subcommittee, and our witnesses for
joining us today.
Members of this Subcommittee are enthusiastic about the
energy innovations that are coming out of DOE's national
laboratories. And rightfully so, given that the labs have
provided our country with breakthroughs like supercomputing,
inventing new materials, pioneering efficient power lines,
improving automotive steel, and discovering 22 elements. Yes,
the periodic table would be much smaller without the National
Labs.
As the COVID-19 pandemic began to unfold in the US, it
became apparent that DOE's laboratories and programs were also
well positioned to help us respond to the virus. It is perhaps
not well known, but this territory of research is not new to
the labs. In fact, as an example, National Lab scientists
developed a non-toxic foam that neutralizes chemical and
biological agents. It was this foam used to clean up
congressional office buildings and mail rooms exposed to
anthrax in 2001.
Lab scientist are also credited for developing the field of
nuclear medicine, producing radioisotopes to diagnose and treat
disease, designing imaging technology to detect cancer, and
developing software to target tumors while sparing healthy
tissue.
DOE Labs house and operate national user facilities like
the Joint Genome Institute, established by the department in
1997 as part of the Human Genome Project. Today, Institute
researchers survey the biosphere to characterize organisms
relevant to the DOE science missions of bioenergy, global
carbon cycling, and biogeochemistry. They also provide advanced
sequencing and computational analysis of genes related to clean
energy generation and environmental characterization and
cleanup.
Leveraging these capabilities has enabled researchers to
develop countermeasures against the novel coronavirus like
diagnostic tests and allowed them to assess transmission and
evolution dynamics as the virus spreads globally.
This hearing will examine the historic reasons for why the
department possesses advanced bioscience capabilities to
address the nation's grand challenges and to stimulate
innovation; how this expertise and DOE's biological research
tools are being leveraged to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic;
and what future directions for the Department's biological
system research can provide solutions for our nation's most
pressing issues.
I look forward to hearing from our witnesses sharing their
expertise on these topics as well as hearing how the Science
Committee can best support DOE's biological research actives to
unleash the next generation of innovation.
But, before I recognize Ranking Member Lucas, I would like
to take a moment to acknowledge that we are holding this
hearing on the 19th anniversary of the September 11 attacks,
and to ask for a moment of silence for us to remember and honor
those who lost their lives, those whose lives were forever
altered, and our first responders, the brave men and women who
rushed in to help our fellow Americans.
Chairwoman Fletcher. Before I recognize Ranking Member
Lucas, I would like to take a moment to acknowledge that we are
holding this hearing on the 19th anniversary of the September
11 attacks, and to ask for a moment of silence for us to
remember and honor those who lost their lives, those whose
lives were forever altered, and our first responders, the brave
men and women who rushed in on this day to help our fellow
Americans.
[Moment of silence observed.]
Chairwoman Fletcher. Thank you. I'll now recognize Mr.
Lucas for an opening Statement.
Mr. Lucas. Thank you, Chairwoman Fletcher, for hosting
this hearing, and thank you for all our witnesses for being
with us this afternoon.
During all the challenges and the uncertainties of this
pandemic, one thing has stood out: our scientific community has
gone above and beyond in the effort to understand, treat, and
prevent COVID-19. The Department of Energy and its Office of
Science and National Labs have been central to this effort.
Today, we have the chance to narrow our focus to DOE's
biological research efforts, in particular, the Biological and
Environmental Research program, BER.
BER is a high-priority research area within the Office of
Science that's consistently received bipartisan support from
this Committee. From examining the complex behavior of plants
and microbes to developing new approaches to characterizing
genomic information, the BER portfolio helps address today's
public health challenges while preparing us for the next
generation of bioscience R&D (research and development).
Much of this work is carried out through BER's user
facilities, including the Joint Genomic Institute, the
preeminent facility for sequencing plants and microbes.
Originally created to lead DOE's role in the Human Genomic
Project, JGI sequencing and analyzes more than 200,000 billion
bases of DNA each year, 200,000 billion. That's a huge number.
Another key BER user facility, the Environmental Molecular
Sciences Laboratory, or EMSL, offers over 50 premier
instruments and modeling resources to assist researchers in
understanding complex biological interactions. EMSL also offers
access to high-performance computing resources to support
advanced experimental research in the biosciences.
Dr. Kelly Wrighton is here with us today and her work
makes great use of the BER resources. Dr. Wrighton is an
Associate Professor at Colorado State University and a
recipient of the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists
and Engineers. I look forward to hearing more from her on the
value of user access to BER's resources.
BER user facilities, along with the other 25 user
facilities maintained and operated by the Office of Science,
are vital tools of scientific discovery and important drivers
of national economic competitiveness. No other system in the
world grants this kind of cutting-edge technology access to
tens of thousands of researchers each year.
But the other countries have taken notice. Developing the
most advanced scientific facilities has become an intense
international competition. The nation with the fastest
supercomputer or most complete genomic data set for example,
will hold a distinct advantage in nearly every field from
materials science to predictive atmospheric modeling.
Office of Science programs like BER need robust Federal
support for large-scale user facilities, which academia and
industry simply cannot afford. This is why the key component of
my bill, H.R. 5685, the ``Securing American Leadership in
Science and Technology Act'', is a comprehensive authorization
of the BER program, which includes a user facility development
program and authorization of important initiatives like the
Bioenergy Research Centers. This legislation also doubles
funding for the entire Office of Science over the next 10
years. This significant investment is essential to U.S.
leadership in Biological and Environmental Research.
Whether it's COVID-19 or the next public health challenge,
our understanding of these complex systems is dependent on the
basic research conducted by BER and the Office of Science. I
urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to join me in
focusing our limited legislative days on these bipartisan
programs.
I once again want to thank our witnesses for being here
today, and I look forward to a productive discussion. And thank
you, Chairwoman Fletcher, and I yield back the balance of my
time.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Lucas follows:]
Thank you, Chairwoman Fletcher for hosting this hearing,
and thank you to all our witnesses for being with us this
afternoon.
During all the challenges and uncertainties of this
pandemic, one thing has stood out: our scientific community has
gone above and beyond in the effort to understand, treat, and
prevent COVID-19.
The Department of Energy and its Office of Science and
National Labs have been central to this effort. Today we have
the chance to narrow our focus to DOE's biological research
efforts-in particular, the Biological and Environmental
Research program, or B.E.R.
B.E.R. is a high-priority research area within the Office
of Science that has consistently received bipartisan support
from this Committee. From examining the complex behavior of
plants and microbes to developing new approaches to
characterizing genomic information--the B.E.R. portfolio helps
address today's public health challenges while preparing us for
the next generation of bioscience R&D.
Much of this work is carried out through B.E.R.'s user
facilities, including the Joint Genome Institute, the
preeminent facility for sequencing plants and microbes.
Originally created to lead DOE's role in the Human Genome
Project, JGI sequences and analyzes more than 200,000 billion
bases of DNA each year.
Another key B.E.R. user facility, the Environmental
Molecular Sciences Laboratory, or EMSL, offers over 50 premier
instruments and modeling resources to assist researchers in
understanding complex biological interactions. EMSL also offers
access to high performance computing resources to support
advanced experimental research in the biosciences.
Dr. Kelly Wrighton is here with us today and her work makes
great use of B.E.R. resources. Dr. Wrighton is an Associate
Professor at Colorado State University and a recipient of the
Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers. I
look forward to hearing more from her on the value of user
access to B.E.R.'s resources.
B.E.R. user facilities, along with the other 25 user
facilities maintained and operated by the Office of Science,
are vital tools of scientific discovery and important drivers
of national economic competitiveness. No other system in the
world grants this kind of cutting-edge technology access to
tens of thousands of researchers each year.
But other countries have taken notice. Developing the most
advanced scientific facilities has become an intense
international competition. The nation with the fastest
supercomputer or most complete genomic data set, for example,
will hold a distinct advantage in nearly every field from
materials science to predictive atmospheric modeling.
Office of Science programs like B.E.R. need robust Federal
support for large-scale user facilities, which academia and
industry simply cannot afford. This is why a key component of
my bill, H.R. 5685, the Securing American Leadership in Science
and Technology Act, is a comprehensive authorization of the
B.E.R. program, which includes a user facility development
program and authorization of important initiatives like the
Bioenergy Research Centers. This legislation also doubles
funding for the entire Office of Science over ten years.
This significant investment is essential to U.S. leadership
in biological and environmental research. Whether it's COVID-19
or the next public health challenge, our understanding of these
complex systems is dependent on the basic research conducted by
B.E.R. and the Office of Science. I urge my colleagues on both
sides of the aisle tojoin me in focusing our limited
legislative days on these bipartisan programs.
I once again want to thank our witnesses for being here
today. I look forward to a productive discussion. Thank you
Chairwoman Fletcher and I yield back the balance of my time.
Chairwoman Fletcher. Thank you very much, Mr. Lucas.
I will now recognize the Chairwoman of the Full Committee,
Ms. Johnson, for an opening Statement.
Chairwoman Johnson. Thank you very much, Mrs. Fletcher and
Mr. Lucas, for holding this hearing today, and thank you to all
the witnesses for being with us today.
We meet to discuss the groundbreaking bioscience research
supported by the Department of Energy's Biological and
Environmental Research program, and how these capabilities are
now being used to better understand the novel COVID-19 virus.
DOE stewards many unique facilities related to the
biosciences. They range from the Department's world-class
genomic sequencing tools that have been decades in the making,
to large x-ray light sources that can be used to identify
various characteristics of and treatments to the virus.
Combining this experimental knowledge with the Department's
state-of-the-art supercomputing capabilities provides our
Nation with a scientific testbed that is second to none.
This extensive biological research portfolio has been
leveraged as part of a broad departmentwide initiative called
the National Virtual Biotechnology Laboratory (NVBL) that was
created to help address the issues we face from the current
global health crisis, as well as those that we can expect in
the future. Not only are the activities of the Biological and
Environmental Research program so critical for better preparing
us to respond to potential future pandemics, but also for our
national energy security and for addressing the climate crisis.
Among other applications, research carried out under this
program will help us develop the low-emissions biofuels of the
future, which will be very important if we work to decarbonize
the transportation sector and other parts of our economy.
Today, however, our focus is on the program's contribution
to the fight against COVID, and I look forward to our
witnesses' testimony. I thank you again to our witnesses for
being here, and with that I yield back the balance of my time.
[The prepared statement of Chairwoman Johnson follows:]
Thank you Chairwoman Fletcher for holding this hearing
today, and thank you to all of our witnesses for being here.
Today we meet to discuss the groundbreaking bioscience
research supported by the Department of Energy's Biological and
Environmental Research program, and how these capabilities are
now being used to better understand the novel COVID-19 virus.
DOE stewards many unique facilities related to the
biosciences. They range from the Department's world-class
genomic sequencing tools that have been decades in the making,
to large x-ray light sources that can be used to identify
various characteristics of and treatments to this virus.
Combining this experimental knowledge with the Department's
state-of-the-art supercomputing capabilities provides our
nation with a scientific testbed that is second to none.
This extensive biological research portfolio has been
leveraged as a part of a broad Department-wide initiative
called the National Virtual Biotechnology Laboratory that was
created to help address the issues we face from the current
global health crisis as well as those we can expect in the
future.
Not only are the activities of the Biological and
Environmental Research program so critical for better preparing
us to respond to potential future pandemics, but also for our
national energy security and for addressing the climate crisis.
Among other applications, research carried out under this
program will help us develop the low-emissions biofuels of the
future, which will be very important as we work to decarbonize
the transportation sector and other parts of our economy.
Today, however, our focus in on the program's contribution
to the fight against COVID, and I look forward to our
witnesses' testimony. Thank you again to our witnesses for
being here, and with that I yield back the balance of my time.
Chairwoman Fletcher. Thank you, Chairwoman Johnson.
If there are Members who wish to submit additional opening
statements, your statements will be added to the record at this
point.
And at this time I would like to introduce our witnesses.
Dr. Mary Maxon is the Associate Laboratory Director of
Biosciences at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory where she
oversees Berkeley Lab's biological systems and engineering,
environmental genomics and system biology, molecular biophysics
and integrated bioimaging divisions, and the DOE Joint Genome
Institute. Prior to joining Berkeley Lab, Dr. Maxon worked in
the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries, as well as the
public sector in such positions as Assistant Director for
Biological Research at the White House Office of Science and
Technology Policy where she developed the National Bioeconomy
Blueprint.
Dr. Debra Mohnen is Professor of Biochemistry and
Molecular Biology at the Complex Carbohydrate Research Center
at the University of Georgia. She has studied plant cell wall
synthesis, structure, and function for more than 30 years and
currently serves as Research Domain Lead for Integrative
Analysis and Understanding within the Department of Energy-
funded Center for Bioenergy Innovation (CBI).
Dr. Glenn Randall is a Professor of Microbiology and Chair
of the Committee on Microbiology at the University of Chicago
where, for the past 15 years, he's overseen studies for
emerging RNA viruses. This year, Dr. Randall was also appointed
the Director of Emerging Infection Research at the Howard
Taylor Ricketts Regional Biocontainment Laboratory where he
leads the lab's COVID-19 research.
Last but certainly not least, Dr. Kelly Wrighton is a
Professor for Soil and Crop Sciences and Microbiome Science at
Colorado State University where her research focuses on the
chemical reactions catalyzed for microorganisms. Prior to
joining Colorado State, Dr. Wrighton was an Assistant Professor
of Microbiology at the Ohio State University.
So thank you to all of our witnesses for joining us today.
As you should know, you will each have 5 minutes for your
spoken testimony. Your written testimony has already been
circulated and will be included in the record for the hearing.
When you've completed your spoken testimony, we will begin with
questions. Each Member will have 5 minutes to question the
panel. We will begin with our witness testimony, and we'll
start with Dr. Maxon. Dr. Maxon, please begin.
TESTIMONY OF DR. MARY MAXON,
ASSOCIATE LABORATORY DIRECTOR FOR BIOSCIENCES,
DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY,
LAWRENCE BERKELEY NATIONAL LABORATORY
Dr. Maxon. Chairwoman Johnson, Ranking Member Lucas,
Chairwoman Fletcher, Ranking Member Weber, and Members of the
Committee, thank you for including me in this important
hearing. My testimony reflects my views only and not those of
the Department of Energy.
DOE's history of biological research is fascinating from
pioneering nuclear medicine and understanding the impact of
radiation on humans to how biology drives energy solutions and
creates new economic option opportunities for the U.S.
bioeconomy. Because of the foundation and biology built across
the national lab complex, the Office of Science Biological and
Environmental Research program, BER, is today one of the
world's leading supporters of nonhuman bioresearch. That is
biology of microbes and plants. BER delivers transformative
energy and environmental discoveries and solutions and, along
with the broader Office of Science and DOE capabilities, can
respond aggressively to national crises such as the current
coronavirus pandemic.
Berkeley Lab's founder Ernest Lawrence in 1931 invented
the cyclotron, a particle accelerator that is the original
ancestor of today's DOE light sources, the large hadron
collider, and particle accelerators around the world.
Understanding the cyclotron's potential beyond physics,
Lawrence asked his younger brother John, an M.D., to harness it
for bioresearch, a move that changed modern medicine forever
and laid the foundation for DOE's biosciences capabilities.
In 1937, John used radioisotopes from the cyclotron to
successfully treat a bone marrow disorder and later used beams
of energized neutrons to treat leukemia, the first cancer
treatment with beams from a particle accelerator. And with
that, the field of nuclear medicine was born.
Bioresearch wasn't limited to human health. At Lawrence's
urging, Melvin Calvin and his colleagues used a radioisotope of
carbon to trace how sunlight drives photosynthesis, winning a
Nobel Prize in 1961.
Because of BER's deep expertise in bioresearch and the
Department's role in large interdisciplinary initiatives, the
Nation turned to DOE and then later to the NIH (National
Institutes of Health) to sequence the human genome. DOE's part
of the Human Genome Project was focused on a collaboration
among three national labs to create the Joint Genome Institute,
the JGI. JGI contributed 13 percent of the total Human Genome
Project and, now managed by Berkeley Lab, is the largest
facility in the world dedicated to genome sciences for energy
and environmental solutions. With roughly 65 billion genes from
microbes alone--and that's significant given the basis of
every--almost every biomanufacturing process starts with genes
and circuits of genes harnessed to make useful bioproducts,
including fuels and therapeutics.
Today, Berkeley Lab's Joint Bioenergy Institute, JBEI, a
BER Bioenergy Research Center, has leveraged DOE's bio-
expertise, facilities, and whole systems approach to lower the
cost of bio-based isopentenol, which has an energy density
close to gasoline. Ten years ago, one gallon of isopentenol
produced in the lab cost about $300,000, and today, it's closer
to $3 a gallon.
DOE is now able to respond to the coronavirus in similar
ways to the Human Genome Project response and JBEI's systemic
approach, that is with diverse teams working together under the
National Virtual Biotechnology Lab established by Office of
Science Director Chris Fall and directed by Deputy Director
Harriet Kung. The NVBL has brought together all of the national
labs to advance innovations in coronavirus testing, new targets
for therapeutics, epidemiological and logistical support, and
to address supply chain bottlenecks. The national labs are now
leveraging DOE user and collaboration facilities to understand
the ancient origins of coronaviruses to identify possible
COVID-19 treatments quickly, develop biomanufacturing processes
for new therapeutics, and investigate new materials and
reagents for viral detection.
DOE's bio-capabilities promise to give rise to future new
tools to reproducibly study biological systems in controllable,
fully instrumented lab ecosystem environments, something not
possible today anywhere in the world. These new fabricated
ecosystems are envisioned to help understand microbiomes and
how they control soil carbon cycling and could also be used to
detect, identify, and mitigate new pathogens in soil systems.
In summary, DOE's bioresearch enterprise has a significant
history and an urgent, vital future for delivering scientific
solutions to drive the U.S. bioeconomy. Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Maxon follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairwoman Fletcher. Thank you very much, Dr. Maxon.
Dr. Mohnen, would you like to go next?
TESTIMONY OF DR. DEBRA MOHNEN,
PROFESSOR, DEPARTMENT OF BIOCHEMISTRY
AND MOLECULAR BIOLOGY, UNIVERSITY OF GEORGIA
Dr. Mohnen. Certainly. Good afternoon, Chairwoman
Fletcher, Ranking Member Lucas, and Members of the
Subcommittee. It is my pleasure to respond to the three
questions about the Biological and Environmental Research
program, BER, within the DOE Office of Science.
First, why does the BER program have biological research
and development activities and capabilities? That's a good
question. One might ask what does energy have to do with
biology. And the short answer would be a lot.
First, let's consider DOE's history. DOE was established
in 1977 through a consolidation of more than 30 energy-related
efforts in different government agencies, some of which were
already doing viral science. Thus, even at the time of its
establishment, DOE was involved in bioscience. The origin of
the biological research within the U.S. energy effort began
during and after World War II with the Manhattan Project and
the postwar Atomic Energy Commission and the development of an
advisory committee to study the effects of radiation on humans.
And this was later expanded to studies on the effects of
radioactive fallout on the atmosphere, terrestrial, and marine
environments and organisms.
Thus, from the origin of DOE and the later-formed BER,
they supported a combination of physical, chemical, and
biological research. This was carried out by both DOE and
academic scientists and facilities. And the goal was to meet
the U.S. energy needs.
Importantly, due to a mandate for DOE at the time, there
was a formal division between the basic and the applied
research, and the Office of Energy Research, later named the
Office of Science, was given the task to oversee the basic
research programs. And since BER is a part of the Office of
Science, it supports and fosters critical basic science to meet
current and future energy needs.
In keeping with its historic roots, the current stated
goal of the BER program is, and I quote, ``to support
scientific research and facilities to achieve a predicted
understanding of complex biological Earth and environmental
systems with the aim of advancing the Nation's energy and
infrastructure.''
It's relevant to today's hearing that the knowledge,
tools, intellectual workforce, and facilities that BER has
supported and developed over the last 30 years to meet the U.S.
energy needs have provided cutting-edge scientific
instrumentation, facilities, and expertise that can immediately
be applied to national emergencies such as the development of
COVID-19 pandemic. As mentioned already, these capabilities
include DNA and RNA sequencing, including the initial mapping
of the human genome, and to date, having fully sequenced
genomes of over 12,000 bacterial species, 3,000 viral, and 93
plant species. This is an enormous accomplishment. Importantly,
BER has also supported the development of a systems biology
approach and, via the use of supercomputers and artificial
intelligence, to help understand and model complex organisms.
Second, how are the BER-funded expertise and advanced
research tools being leveraged to respond to the COVID-19
pandemic? The world-leading capabilities I've just mentioned,
including the world's fastest computers, have enabled the BER-
funded researchers to rapidly direct their attention to the
national and global threat of COVID-19. The DOE capabilities
being brought to bear include--I'll just mention two here--DOE
structural biology resources, which have led, among others, to
a new understanding of the three-dimensional structures and
molecular actions of protein components of the SARS-CoV-2
virus, which helps us understand the disease.
Another example is the work by DOE Oak Ridge National
Lab's Systems Biologist Dan Jacobson, who uses Oak Ridge
supercomputers and systems biology to analyze the genome, the
transcriptome, the RNA, the proteome, and evolutionary data
from human lung samples of very ill people and also people--
control samples, as well as taking advantage of the data across
the world. His team has recently published and has continuing
to work based on these holistic analyses a new proposed
mechanism for COVID-19 infection, as well as multiple therapies
using existing FDA (Food and Drug Administration) drugs
discovered through this systems biology approach.
And finally, the future directions of the BER department,
the importance of understanding and utilizing complex
biological systems to meet our current and future energy needs
is particularly evident when one considers that, each year,
more than 100 billion tons of carbon dioxide are fixed by
photosynthetic organisms into biomass, and this biomass is
essential. It's an essential large-scale renewable resource for
energy, chemical, and biomaterials production. And when one
considers that fossil fuels, which represent 80 percent of our
current U.S. energy needs, are simply ancient biomass that was
converted over time and pressure to petroleum, natural gas, and
coal. Thus, the importance of understanding plants and microbes
that produce and can transform this biomass into materials and
energy cannot be overstated.
And, in conclusion, just as BER carried out biological
research in the past to safely develop energy supplies, it's
future must take the next step in understanding and utilizing
biology and biological organisms to ensure a continuing and
strong U.S. energy portfolio. Indeed, the United States should
lead the world in these efforts, the results of which will
drive a new national and world economy. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Mohnen follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairwoman Fletcher. Thank you, Dr. Mohnen. Next, we'll
hear from Dr. Randall.
TESTIMONY OF DR. GLENN C. RANDALL,
CHAIR, COMMITTEE ON MICROBIOLOGY,
THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO
Dr. Randall. Chairwoman Fletcher, Ranking Member Lucas,
and Members of the Subcommittee, I thank you for the
opportunity to participate in today's discussion about
biological research at the Department of Energy.
As was mentioned, I am currently directing COVID-19
research at one of our country's 13 regional biocontainment
laboratories, and so I will focus my remarks as to how DOE is
responding to COVID-19.
So, earlier this year, we established a SARS-CoV-2
research core, and the idea behind this is that very few of
these high biocontainment biosafety level III facilities exist,
and there are many people with good ideas who don't have access
to high containment. And so we provide collaborations where we
provide both the facilities and the expertise to work directly
with SARS-CoV-2. And this is primarily focused on evaluating
treatments and vaccines, a little bit on the biology of the
virus but mostly translational.
It's in this capacity that I've gained a real appreciation
for the value of the COVID-19 research performed in the
Department of Energy. In particular, I've enjoyed multiple
productive COVID-19-related collaborations with scientists at
the DOE's Argonne National Laboratory that I would be happy to
discuss in further detail. But suffice it to say we have
identified dozens of therapeutics, both FDA-approved and novel,
that are active against the virus, at least in vitro.
The DOE's Office of Science's Biological and Environmental
Research or BER program, as has already been discussed, has a
storied history integrating biologists, physicists, computer
scientists, and engineers to address some of the important
questions of today and tomorrow. Many of the extraordinary
capabilities that BER has nurtured have been foundational to a
specific response to COVID-19, which is the virtual
biotechnology library. This is a consortium of all 17 DOE
national laboratories, each with core capabilities that are
relevant to the threats posed by COVID-19. They leverage
expertise in technology that synergistically interact with each
other, academia, and industry to advance our fight against
COVID-19.
This effort capitalizes on long-held expertise in BER in
unequaled strengths, particularly solving structures of
proteins, what they look like, and how to target them with
drugs or neutralizing antibodies and supercomputing to
stimulate billions of potential drug target interactions. This
amplifies our current pharmaceutical capabilities by orders of
magnitude.
It is in these two areas that I have collaborated with the
DOE scientists and am most knowledgeable. I have worked
together, as I said, to identify multiple drug candidates with
DOE scientists. Other areas of NVBL emphasis include genome
sequencing to track SARS-CoV-2 evolution and potential
development of resistance to treatments, epidemiological and
logistical support, protected data bases that would host
patient health data for research and analysis, manufacturing
capabilities to address supply chain bottlenecks in areas such
as PPE and ventilators, testing of clinical and nonclinical
samples, and, more recently, a project designed to address open
questions about the mechanisms of SARS-CoV-2 transmission that
will help inform approaches to interrupt chain infections and
inform strategies that will guide our resumption to normal
activities.
The coordinated response of the NVBL to COVID-19 addresses
critical needs in developing effective cures and vaccines that
will help end the pandemic and, as applies to the future, will
help provide a framework with how to more--be more responsive
to the coming pandemics because this won't be the last one.
Thank you for your time.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Randall follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairwoman Fletcher. Thank you very much, Dr. Randall.
We'll now hear from Dr. Wrighton.
TESTIMONY OF DR. KELLY C. WRIGHTON,
ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR, DEPARTMENT OF SOIL
AND CROP SCIENCE, COLORADO STATE UNIVERSITY
Dr. Wrighton. Chairwoman Fletcher, Ranking Member Lucas,
and the rest of the Committee, thank you for inviting me today.
As you've heard about DOE's history of biological research, I'm
here to tell you about how this history of pioneering
biological research is active today and is perhaps best
manifested by ongoing DOE investments in user facilities,
including those of the Joint Genome Institute or the JGI and
the Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory or EMSL,
amongst more than 20 other facilities. Although I am not
directly affiliated with these facilities, I represent the
experience of a self-titled superuser.
Since my laboratory's inception in 2014, I have managed
nine different projects and awards with EMSL and JGI. From my
narrative, I want you to take away a key message. These user
facilities propel science in this country and especially can
benefit those like myself at the earliest stages of their
independent research programs.
Starting your research program at a university is much
like starting your own small business. Essentially, your job is
to take the university's investment in you called startup
funding and use it to finance innovative science. The goal is
the short-term investment by the university will enable one to
obtain data and recognition to compete for external research
dollars that fuel independent scientific endeavors.
User facilities played a vital role in my early career by
allowing me to maximize my startup investment. First, they
allowed me to scale my scientific scope beyond what was
possible in my new laboratory with a small nascent workforce.
Second, they provided me access to equipment beyond what was
located in my building or even on my campus. Third, they
networked me with experts who are at the cutting edge of their
fields.
My early collaborations with DOE user facilities led to
scientific publications that developed me as a research leader
in a few short years. More important, we generated data that
facilitated my future fiscal independence, forging projects
sponsored by U.S. industry and the National Science Foundation.
This symbiotic relationship between individual researchers and
user facilities benefits the entire scientific community
because what it enables us to do is collect diverse data
streams and then this content is subsequently populated in data
bases that's shared with the community. In summary, DOE
investments and user facilities are invaluable resources that
amplify innovation and extend the research dollars of our
scientific enterprise.
I know today when we talk about biology we must addressed
the dominant issue of public health, COVID-19. While DOE's
direct contributions to COVID-19 research will be articulated
and were very well-articulated by other members of my panel, an
area that I can speak to is this idea of translational
investment. Essentially, how is investment in one scientific
arena energize or cross-pollinate other parallel scientific
discovery? You don't have to know biology or envision--that
detangling invisible microbes from wetland soils or shale rock
is not the cleanest or easiest of work. On the environmental
side, we have a long history of developing methods for
isolating DNA and RNA from these complex matrices, technologies
that are used by my colleagues doing SARS-CoV-2 surveillance
research in wastewater and other systems.
Moreover, even prior to the pandemic, DOE was leading
investments in viral mechanistic ecology from every habitat we
explored from deep below the Earth's surface to our soils, to
our rivers, and even our own guts, research for my group and
others has recovered new viruses and demonstrated key roles for
these viruses in modulating nutrient cycles.
Currently fueled by DOE's support, teams I am part of are
devising new software for rapidly detecting viral genomic
signatures and environmental data, as well as defining the
biochemistry enigmatic within these poorly understood viruses.
In summary, DOE has developed the foundational expertise in
technology and genomic sciences that can lead and be translated
to epidemiological solutions for today and future public health
challenges.
Lastly, despite the advanced capabilities user facilities
shepherd, looking to the future, there are areas to reinforce
our Nation's capabilities. Currently, genomics information is
being generated faster than the corresponding capabilities can
keep up with, and more so than our computational infrastructure
can mine. This means we have thousands to tens of thousands of
genes that lack any known function or, said more positively,
this means there is a huge reservoir of biotechnological
applications awaiting discovery.
But what three areas are needed to expedite the speed in
which researchers can translate genomics information into
actual knowledge? We--first, we need a coordinated, organized
computational infrastructure that enables computer-aided
pattern recognition of this deluge of genomics and microbiome
data. Second, we need research automation and scale that extend
beyond the resources of any one lab and even those of our user
facilities as they're designed today. And last, the heart of
future discovery lies in creating this multidisciplinary
higher-risk collaborative space.
In summary, this streamlined and cross-disciplinary
scientific vision will allow us to embark on a new era of
decoding biological information that heavily leverages DOE's
genomic infrastructure. This trailblazing will result in new
biotechnological innovations to environmental, engineering, and
health-related challenges that will be faced by mine and
subsequent generations. I thank you for your time.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Wrighton follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairwoman Fletcher. Thank you, Dr. Wrighton. We will now
proceed with our first round of questions, and I will recognize
myself for 5 minutes.
This question that I have is really a broad question
directed at all of the witnesses, so happy for you all to take
this in any order you choose and to kind of share with us
between each other a question about what has happened basically
in response to the pandemic. DOE launched the National Virtual
Biotechnology Laboratory, NVBL, which is charged to mobilize
the resources of the Department's 17 national labs to engage in
COVID-19 research.
I would like to hear from you all whether you think the
NVBL should continue its work even in the future when we are
not actively responding to a global pandemic, and if so, why?
And if you could touch on in your responses maybe in what ways
could the activities of the NVBL help accelerate [inaudible]
pandemic and how has the creation of the NVBL influenced
operations or changed the partnerships between the national
laboratories or with academia and the private sector?
So I'd love to turn it back to the panel for your thoughts
on that question, and maybe if we'll go back in order, we could
start again with Dr. Maxon.
Dr. Maxon. Thank you for the question. I'll tackle a
couple of parts of it, the first being do I think the NVBL
should continue? I think there are a number of good reasons why
the NVBL should continue, and a primary one being that it's
likely that this will not be the only pandemic that we'll see,
and it would be a missed opportunity not to have an NVBL poised
and ready to tackle the next one.
You also asked about how has the creation of the NVBL and
the response of the coronavirus pandemic influenced
partnerships. I can say having been at a national lab for a
number of years now, I've never seen more collaboration across
the national labs working synergistically on a common problem
with different pieces of it in ways that we are now doing as a
consequence of the NVBL.
Chairwoman Fletcher. Terrific. Thank you, Dr. Maxon. Dr.
Mohnen?
Dr. Mohnen. If I could be the last one to speak----
Chairwoman Fletcher. Sure.
Dr. Mohnen. --I'm not directly influenced--I want to read
up just a little bit.
Chairwoman Fletcher. Oh, absolutely. I will come back to
you. Maybe Ms. Wrighton?
Dr. Wrighton. Sure. I actually am not directly affiliated
with NVBL as well, but I think when I was talking about this
future of discovery and how we can catalyze and build around
kind of a central unit and a theme, I think NVBL embodies that.
And so really it was a problem that we were faced with as a
research community, and it took new disciplinary teams and it
brought together people that hadn't worked together before. And
I really think that that's the heart and soul of this future
kind of innovation is building these kinds of teams to address
real-time problems. So I really think that NVBL and others like
it should continue.
Chairwoman Fletcher. Terrific. Thank you, Dr. Wrighton.
And Dr. Randall?
Dr. Randall. Yes, I'd like to first amplify what Dr. Maxon
said, which is that there will be future pandemics. And I think
there's a history of investing briefly in an emergency and then
sort of forgetting, and so the anthrax attacks are an example
of where we had biodefense apparatus that was heavily invested
in for 10 years and then was no longer supported. And really,
as we look at what works and doesn't work and have a response
to the current pandemic, that can really help through the
framework of how we respond to the next one.
From my personal interactions, the advantages are
teamwork, collaboration, and really bringing forward a
multipronged attack to address multiple disparate issues with
this pandemic. In terms of immediate needs--I can talk about my
own experience. We've talked a lot about the capabilities of
the labs to solve protein structures. I benefited in that by
the time we got SARS-CoV up and running here, our colleagues a
few blocks away at Argonne had already solved structures of
some of the most important proteins that are drug targets. Now,
we screen with them, give them the drugs, and within a week
they can show where the drug has bind to that protein, how to
make the drug better, and how the drug works. It's spectacular.
And the other aspect I would highlight is the
supercomputing. So, the typical drug company has compound
libraries of 1 to 3 million compounds that they'll physically
screen, and so there's a consortium of supercomputing that
basically put together a virtual library of every chemical on
earth, 5 billion. So you're talking three orders of magnitude
more and can basically do machine learning and artificial
intelligence to look at how these compounds bind to these drug
targets and then whittle that down to the top thousand or so
and then bring them over to my lab where we can test if they
work. And quite a few do. And really, you know, there hasn't
been drug screening thought of this way, this is going to go
way beyond COVID to any disease model, cancer, et cetera. So
there's really a lot that can be leveraged not only for COVID
but for future advancement.
Chairwoman Fletcher. Thank you so much, Dr. Randall. And 5
minutes goes very fast, so I will thank all of you for your
answers. Unfortunately, my time has expired, so I will now
recognize Mr. Lucas for 5 minutes.
Mr. Lucas. Thank you, Chairwoman.
Dr. Wrighton, in your research you leverage expertise from
the Joint Genomic Institute and the computational capacities of
the Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory. Can you talk
about your experiences in working with both user facilities?
Dr. Wrighton. Sure. I don't know how familiar everyone is,
but if and when you want to access user facility resources,
basically, you write a grant. That grant gets reviewed by a
board or a review panel of other scientists. And so basically
the DOE gives you a charge. So this year, the theme is--and
then they actually look at goodness of fit. So I've written
grants and I've basically been awarded many by JGI, the Joint
Genome Institute, as well as at EMSL. I actually don't use
their computational resources. I use more of their molecular
resources.
So they are innovators. I mean, they have access both at
Ohio State and Colorado State we did not have the FTICR mass
capabilities, this mass spec capabilities that EMSL had. And so
it was a great example of where I didn't have resources on my
campus, nor did we have trained experts that could use that
environmental data, but I could collaborate with EMSL and I
could get detailed information on the molecular structural of
the soils that I was working in. And so they serve that role
for many in the scientific community. And so it really is a way
to enhance accessibility and to really expand your science
beyond any boundaries that you may have on your campus or in
your department.
The same goes for JGI. I mean, the sequencing capabilities
they have, I could maybe sequence 10 samples. With them, I've
had hundreds to thousands of samples sequenced in a rapid
turnaround time.
Mr. Lucas. Speaking of accessing facilities, could you
touch on for a moment about how the COVID-19 pandemic has
affected your access to these facilities?
Dr. Wrighton. Yes, you know, I have not--it has not
changed my access to these facilities per se. I mean,
obviously, when there's lab shutdowns, these facilities were
also shut down, but only in that sense. And I think that the
facilities are really just trying to make good faith to turn
around and get samples processed as rapidly as they can. So I
have not seen a change in my science in collaboration with
those facilities due to COVID-19.
Mr. Lucas. Dr. Maxon, can you give us your perspective
from the laboratory side of how COVID has impacted access to
user facilities at the Berkeley Lab?
Dr. Maxon. Yes, thank you for that question. Many of the
facilities at the lab have remote capability, the
supercomputing facilities, the Joint Genome Institute. Several
of the data handling things obviously happen remotely. The
advanced light source has remote activities.
However, there are things that need to get done by humans,
and we are working very hard now to understand with safe what
we call COVID controls, face coverings and distance working to
protect the workers and shiftwork actually, which we never did
before. We're trying to bring the full strength of the user
facilities back online because we know the users depend on
them. So we're doing our best to do that now, and we're not
quite up to full speed, certainly not at the JGI yet, but we
are definitely trying.
Mr. Lucas. From your position now looking forward, what do
you expect in terms of the requests from researchers from this
point on?
Dr. Maxon. I think it will largely depend on what
researchers can do with respect to collecting field samples. In
the case of the JGI, we're looking at DNA that comes--nucleic
acids that come from field samples. And if researchers are able
to do the fieldwork that generates the samples that then gets
sent to the user facilities, then I think it will be a good
response. I think we'll be fine. We'll be able to have a lot of
users' needs met. If, however, the pandemic limits the ability
of people to travel to go to their field sites, I think there
will be a reduced demand.
Mr. Lucas. Absolutely. Dr. Wrighton, one more question. On
top of being a frequent facility user, you also sit on the JGI
advisory board. What would it mean for your researchers or
others you hear from if BER's user facilities are not updated?
Would the facilities simply become obsolete?
Dr. Wrighton. Yes. Yes. I mean, absolutely. I think
especially JGI does a really nice job and they have a call for
early investigators, so you're not competing with people who
have 20 years of experience. You're competing in a much smaller
group, and they really train you in how to analyze the data and
how to work with your data. So if those investments weren't
made, I think that the biggest impact would actually be on the
next generation of science and early career scientists
especially because they do a really good job of kind of
corralling scientists into learning how to use the data and the
technology, as well as giving access.
So one of the neatest things about JGI is that they're
always on the cutting edge. I mean, they're using the newest
technology. And so I think that's what keeps them so
competitive and makes them a place that really people want to
come and bring their data and be part of because of the benefit
of the cutting-edge technology they offer.
Mr. Lucas. Thanks, Doc. And Chair, my time's expired. I
yield back.
Chairwoman Fletcher. Thank you, Mr. Lucas. I'll now
recognize Chairwoman Johnson for 5 minutes.
Chairwoman Johnson. Thank you very much. I'd like to start
with Dr. Mohnen. As you noted in your testimony, much of the
COVID-19 research BER has carried out and has built upon years
of previous research. Can you speak to the importance of
consistent and robust long-term investments in the BER program
as a tool to fight future health and environmental crises?
Dr. Mohnen. Yes, absolutely. I've been working now in the
capacity of the bioenergy research centers with DOE and many
BER-funded researchers for over 13 years. And it's very
interesting to compare just briefly academic researchers versus
DOE. DOE researchers are very much mission-driven. Academic, as
was mentioned, you decide on the field or fields you're going
to develop, and you do a very deep dive. And so what the DOE
labs have been able to do is they take a mission-oriented long-
term approach on developing capabilities and then proving them
and do multiple things at once. They will attack critical
questions that are mission-important.
And one of these, for example, with the bioenergy research
centers, has been to understand both on the microbial side and
on the plant side the complex array of genes on the plant side
that make the biomass and modify it. This has led to
understandings that have allowed us to manipulate plants to get
them to grow six times more biomass in the field. This has led
to understandings of microbes that can produce chemicals. This
has led to the development of systems biology capabilities and
artificial intelligence to look at huge gene networks. And this
research has both a fundamental and a potentially applied
portion of it. And it develops a long-term commitment to build
on the foundations that are established.
So even though we've made, for example, great strides in
understanding how to utilize biomass, deconstruct it so to
speak, convert it into various types of biofuels, we're still
at a point where there is, again, as much that needs to be
learned to make the kind of fuels that are needed for the
future, to understand the involvement of the microbes in the
field to biomass growth to be able to respond to climate
change.
I'm not sure. Did I answer your question well? I could
continue.
Chairwoman Johnson. Yes. Are there other witnesses who
would like to comment on that?
OK. Well, Dr. Maxon, DOE has a long history of supporting
a variety of user facilities used by researchers all over the
world. In particular, DOE holds several x-ray light sources
that allow in-depth studies of materials at the atomic and
molecular levels. Could you expand on how these light sources
have been used to better understand COVID-19, as well as
diagnostic and treatment options?
Dr. Maxon. Thank you for the question. Yes, the x-ray
light sources have been critically important. One of my
colleagues on the panel mentioned that the x-ray light sources
are being used to study in detail the specific proteins of the
SARS-CoV-2 virus, how those proteins interact with the host,
that's critically important, and so that's one simple example.
Yesterday, I saw a fascinating presentation by a
researcher using the Advanced Light Source with soft x-ray
tomography to look inside cells that are infected with SARS-
CoV-2. What does it look like when they're not infected, what
does it look like when they're infected, and how can we
understand how the virus can hijack the internal machinery of
the cell to make more and more viruses? And so I would say the
light sources have very quickly responded to help not only
identify the critical pieces of the viral proteins but
understand how the virus does what it does inside the host
cells to make advances toward new therapeutics.
Chairwoman Johnson. Thank you very much. I think my time
is about to expire, so I yield back.
Chairwoman Fletcher. Thank you very much, Chairwoman
Johnson. I will now recognize Mr. Biggs for 5 minutes. Is Mr.
Biggs still with us?
Mr. Lucas. I believe he's departed.
Chairwoman Fletcher. I believe he has, in which case I
will recognize Mr. Cloud for 5 minutes.
Mr. Cloud. Can you pass on me for the moment?
Chairwoman Fletcher. Yes, I can. I will now recognize Dr.
Baird for 5 minutes.
Mr. Baird. Thank you. I really appreciate the opportunity
to sit in on this session, and it's fantastic, the work that
these researchers are doing.
Dr. Maxon, you just finished discussing how the proteins
in the coronavirus, what they do in infected cells. And would
you care to elaborate on that? I find that very interesting,
how those proteins, you know, DNA, RNA, the genome, and so on.
I really would be interested in how the proteins in this
coronavirus impact cells, lung tissue, for example.
Dr. Maxon. Thank you for that question. So what I was able
to learn yesterday in the study of the infected cells, it's
still early days, so the experiments need to be worked out and
they are developing some results now. It looks like when the
virus infects the cell, it then goes through a process of
creating what's called a replication center. That replication
center does what it sounds like it should do, and that is it
begins to use the machinery of the host cell to replicate more
and more and more pieces of the virus to create more viruses to
then be released and infect other cells.
It's really early, though, to be able to detect what the
actual form of infection is that causes sickness. At least from
these x-ray studies from the user facility we're just a few
ways off from understanding that. But understanding at the
cellular level, the creation of a replication complex center
and the fact that there are cells that can fuse together to
have two nuclei in the cell, that was found by these x-ray
tomography studies, very interesting and still very early days.
We're not sure what it means yet, but getting closer to
understanding it for sure. Thank you for the question.
Mr. Baird. Can I continue on with one more question then?
So these new proteins, how do they escape the original cell? Do
you have a feel for that?
Dr. Maxon. Yes, so thank you. There's a process by which
the cellular machinery is hijacked if you will not only to make
more virus but to extrude the virus out of the cell. For
decades we've understood how cells are infected with other
types of viruses to then release the virus particles into other
cells.
Mr. Baird. Very good. Dr. Wrighton, you mentioned your
work and getting a lot of sequencing done in a very short
period of time, but my question to you is what happens to the
coronavirus as it comes in contact with soil?
Dr. Wrighton. You know, I think that we're still in very
early days in terms of surveillance of the coronavirus and
other viruses like the coronavirus and their distribution
across different ecosystems, soils, rivers, wastewater streams.
I think a very active and exciting research that's led by some
colleagues at JGI that I was actually just speaking to this
morning about this was we're basically trying to figure out
ways that we can survey the diversity of these types of viruses
so we get a sense for the reservoirs of these viruses. Also,
we're trying to develop new tools so we can look at the
variation within these viruses so that we can maybe start
seeing those different populations and these changes and we
could maybe better track these viruses using their genome tags
over time and space beyond just the human host but have a
better, broader environmental context. So I think that's a
place where JGI will really play an important role moving
forward.
Mr. Baird. So I got about 1 minute left, and I would ask
you and Dr. Maxon both, so the BER in your opinion plays an
important role in finding the answers you just both discussed.
Dr. Maxon. Yes.
Mr. Baird. I see you nodding your head.
Dr. Wrighton. Yes, without a doubt. And I just think, too,
it's this parallel investment. I mean, I think anytime you get
discovery in one end, it transcends and fuels another side and
back and forth. And I think that's what we really need to be
armed and ready for this pandemic and the next pandemic.
Mr. Baird. Well, I think that kind of cooperation and
collaboration is absolutely essential. And I think this basic
research is really critical, especially in times like this
pandemic.
So I see my time is about up, and so, Madam Chair, I yield
back the balance of my time. Thank you.
Chairwoman Fletcher. Thank you, Dr. Baird. I'll now
recognize Ms. Horn for 5 minutes.
Ms. Horn. Thank you very much, Chairwoman, and thank you
to all of our witnesses for this insightful and incredibly
helpful hearing today.
My first question is for Dr. Maxon and Dr. Randall. And
specifically around DOE's laboratories and their involvement in
past pandemic responses such as HIV, Ebola, and influenza, and
I'm wondering how the existing research has been adapted or
reoriented for COVID-19 research purposes right now.
Dr. Randall. Yes, I can say, you know, in particular two
past coronavirus pandemics, SARS-CoV-1 and not as big but
Middle Eastern coronavirus, we're talking about how these
proteins look, their structures, and they're similar and they
have similar biochemical properties, so knowing how we could
make and purify them and what they look like really expedited
how fast we could learn the structures of the current
coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2. So that's certainly one example of
where past research really had us prepared and ready to move
very quickly with the current pandemic.
Ms. Horn. Thank you very much. Dr. Maxon?
Dr. Maxon. Thank you. I will offer one example. I know
that from the time of the Ebola virus pandemic, the Advanced
Light Source researchers again used the x-rays to understand
the viral structure and how the proteins of the virus do what
they do. So I do know that at least in the case of the Ebola,
the Department of Energy was in fact involved.
Ms. Horn. Following up on that a little bit more, Dr.
Maxon, how is the COVID-19 pandemic different from outbreaks of
other infectious diseases in terms of impact on DOE's research
efforts or the way that DOE has approached disease-specific
research?
Dr. Maxon. Impacts, there's a couple of ways. I think,
first, I would be remiss if I didn't say that a major impact of
the COVID-19 pandemic is on the cost of doing research. That
has been a significant challenge for us to deal with. So that's
one.
I think in terms of impacts of disease research
specifically around this pandemic, as I said, bringing together
the labs to pull all parts of what we have as core capabilities
toward this problem, we have people working with the parts of
the lab that do biomanufacturing process development, never
before working on a treatment for an antiviral but definitely
doing that now and working with companies to do it.
Ms. Horn. Thank you very much. And I want to turn slightly
different focus for just a moment. And, Dr. Maxon, continuing
on with you. In your testimony you mentioned that DOE research
has drastically reduced the predicted cost of new biofuels. And
as we are looking at not only addressing the next pandemic and
DOE's role in research, we also have to take into account so
many other factors, environment and related factors. And
biofuels are going to be a critical component of, I think, next
generation energy. So I'm curious about what advances--or how
these advances are transferred to industry and what additional
resources may be needed by DOE to help enable the commercial
adaptation and adoption of biofuels?
Dr. Maxon. Thank you. Biofuels, so the way that these
advances are translated to industry include from the Bioenergy
Research Centers' proactive engagements with industry to make
clear that there are new technologies available in the biofuels
space for licensing, frankly. And I think what's required now,
there's still a gap, as I mentioned. The costs have come down,
but the gap in being able to make these commodity products,
these biofuels at scale is missing, and that piece, being able
to take a small-scale laboratory proof-of-concept and make it
commercially scaled, that's the gap that I think is seriously
missing and we could use some help.
Ms. Horn. I have very little time left, but thank you for
that, and I think filling that gap is critically important, so
thank you. And Madam Chair, I yield back.
Chairwoman Fletcher. Thank you, Ms. Horn. I'll now
recognize Mr. Cloud for 5 minutes.
Mr. Cloud. Thank you. And thank you all for being here
today. We certainly appreciate the work you do to keep us on
the forefront of science, especially when we consider the
competitive global environment that we're in, how important it
is for the United States to stay on the cutting edge of these
technologies and these advancements in science. I really
appreciate it.
Kind of continuing on with the questioning Ms. Horn had,
just talking about some of the lessons learned from previous
pandemics and such, not only are we learning a lot about the
science when it comes to COVID, but it seems to me we're doing
things a lot differently, not only coming up with new
discoveries but also new best practices. Could you compare
maybe some of the lessons we're learning from an operational
standpoint, from a best-practice standpoint compared to how we
approached the work of research compared to previous pandemics?
Dr. Mohnen. With people that use systems biology and
computational modeling on plant systems where we don't have as
much information as we do on human systems because on plants
there are many, many species, humans we've got a lot more money
concentrated on humans and model mice, et cetera. So the data
that you have for human systems is incredible, whereas a
systems biology approach is always limited by the data set.
When you get to humans, what I've seen now with what Dan
Jacobson and others can do with these supercomputers that DOE
funds, we've got the second-fastest in the world and the amount
of data out there, both published and in-house from the DNA
sequencing, RNA sequencing, et cetera, they are now at a point
I actually didn't believe a couple years ago we would be at.
They can make predictions by running supercomputers and
integrating all the data from metabolomics, from proteomics,
genomics, evolution, and they can come up with hypotheses that
have a very strong potential of being correct, that can direct
our thinking. We've gone over, I think, an edge to where now
you're not going to get definitive answers from this but you're
going to get answers that are highly probable and then can
inform the people that go in the lab into the experiments. I
think this is a turning point that only has become possible
with these supercomputing abilities and the ability to do the
systems biology.
And, finally, the fact that you've got this national lab
set up where you interact with a bunch of specialists, whether
they be academic or in the labs to inform the information as
the results are interpreted. I'll stop.
Mr. Cloud. Well, thank you.
Dr. Randall. Yes, I was just going to follow that up and
say I agree completely. And also the speed of sequencing and so
forth has ramped up so fast that within discovery of the virus
we had sequenced within, you know, a week and all the companies
that are rushing out their vaccines and knew how to synthesize
spike to get it in their vaccine platforms to where we're
getting these vaccine candidates years before we traditionally
have.
And these platforms were all developed, you know, for
things that were not SARS-CoV-2. The only thing SARS-CoV-2-
related in them is the spike protein. And so really there's a
lot of platforms and best practices in place. I know the
pandemic seems long, but the response historically is very
fast.
Mr. Cloud. Yes. Well, thank you. Dr. Maxon, I was
wondering from your experience in Berkeley National Lab, you
know, we can appreciate the research going on, but then we also
know that our research has been under attack in a sense from
other nation-states, specifically China. Can you speak to what
the DOE has been doing to ensure that our research continues to
be safe and secure?
Dr. Maxon. I can speak from the perspective of an employee
at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab.
Mr. Cloud. Right. Right.
Dr. Maxon. We definitely take very seriously the export
controls. We follow those controls very clearly to make sure
that our research stays our research. We are looking very
carefully at our foreign visitors' processes to make sure that
we know who's coming onto the lab and we know what they're
there to do. And so we're taking the precautions to make sure
that our research stays our research. We've actually in the
last couple of years updated some of our badge-in systems so
that we can keep track of who came in and when. And so I think
we are at least at our national lab and I'm sure others are
very, very concerned about keeping things and all of the data
that we have in our labs secure from attack.
Mr. Cloud. Well, especially with teleworking, I guess
that's one of the concerns I have. Can you speak to that at all
or----
Dr. Maxon. I understand--thank you. Teleworking does
present some new concerns, especially many of the computing
people don't have home systems that can handle the big scales
of data that they need to use. But as it relates to the
security of the data, I understand that the IT (Information
technology) infrastructures at the labs are working hard to
make sure that we have all the right up-to-date tools. We
talked about updating facilities earlier, updating the cyber
aspects of the labs are important, too, just for that reason.
Mr. Cloud. Thank you very much. I appreciate it. My time
is expired. Thank you for being you today, all of you.
Chairwoman Fletcher. Thank you, Mr. Cloud. I'll now
recognize Mr. McNerney for 5 minutes.
Mr. McNerney. Well, I thank the Chairwoman and Ranking
Member and I thank the panelists. I have to say it is exciting
hearing about what's going on in the labs.
And my first question is for Dr. Maxon, and it'll be a
softball. And it's good to see you here, Dr. Maxon. You noted
that societal challenges such as the need to store carbon at
massive scale and produce crops and develop crops for changing
climate demand quick action and quick response. How important
is it for the United States to maintain its lead in these
areas?
Dr. Maxon. Thank you for the question, Doctor. It's
critically important that the Nation maintain our leadership.
We have the capability to produce a billion tons of sustainable
biomass in the United States. It's a strategic natural reserve
of sorts. And to be able to convert that biomass into the
bioeconomy's products, including transportation fuels and
chemicals and reduce greenhouse gas emissions, it's critically
important that we maintain that lead. We're the only country
that has a lead like that.
Mr. McNerney. Is the current Federal investment adequate
to ensure that we do maintain the lead?
Dr. Maxon. Well, that's a challenging question to answer.
I would offer from my own perspective that more resources would
be very helpful in allowing us to understand how to take
diverse feedstocks such as agricultural waste and forest waste.
In California, as you know, we have a lot of forests that are
overgrown.
Mr. McNerney. Yes.
Dr. Maxon. If we could turn that forest waste in--that
woody biomass into biomanufactured products, fuels and
chemicals used regionally, for example, like microbreweries, I
think that would be a very good investment to make, more about
how to change the feedstock capabilities of the United States.
Mr. McNerney. Well, thank you. The pandemic has been with
us since February or March, and we hear about the capabilities
of the lab complex to address national crises such as the
pandemic. Can anyone on the panel point to specific
achievements in this effort that is now helping the Nation
fight the pandemic?
Dr. Mohnen. Well, Mr. McNerney, as I mentioned more so in
the written statement, I was actually very surprised when I
read Dan Jacobson's work because I worked on the plant
microsite, so I had to catch up. That systems biology approach
identified 11 FDA-approved medications that should be able to,
if the analyses are correct, improve some of the effects of the
COVID infection. And I assume those are being looked at
immediately in small clinical trials. There are other people on
the panel who are more experts in the COVID themselves. But
even that--and his work's made quite a splash. It's been
covered in Forbes and many medical journals. And that's just
one example.
Then the other example was the work--and I've forgotten
the researcher's name now. It comes out of a laboratory where
they used the modeling capabilities and the 3-D protein
structure prediction. These researchers determined the first
structure of one or more of the COVID proteins at a temperature
that might exist and the temperature of the body actually. And
that gave information on slightly different structures that
could be important in understanding how medications or cell
proteins or metabolites interact with them. So the results are
completely new, up-to-date, and informative. But I yield now to
people with more expertise with COVID-19.
Mr. McNerney. Well, I'm going to move on to my next
question, though. The lab consortium or collaboration have been
working with the pharmaceutical companies to develop vaccines.
You just mentioned, Dr. Mohnen, about therapeutics. Is anyone
able to give an example of collaboration between the BER and
private companies? And what are the ownership issues involved?
No one's going to bite on that one? OK.
Well, my last question, on Wednesday, 78 Stanford
researchers and physicians issued a letter about the falsehood
and misrepresentations of science that have been spread by Dr.
Scott Atlas, who was appointed to the White House Coronavirus
Task Force last month. This is only one example of the
Administration's attack on science. What impact do these
disregards for science have on our ability to fight COVID?
Whoever wants to step up.
Dr. Randall. I'm not going to speak specifically to that,
but what I will say is that public trust in science is critical
to get people to take the vaccine when we get it, and that is a
concern.
Mr. McNerney. All right. Thank you. I yield back, Madam
Chair.
Chairwoman Fletcher. Thank you, Mr. McNerney. I'll now
recognize Mr. Foster for 5 minutes.
Mr. Foster. Thank you, Madam Chairman and to our
witnesses.
So I have one very specific question and then one much
more general one. The specific one is that there is this theory
of very severe cases of COVID that goes by the name of the
bradykinin storm hypothesis. And this apparently was discovered
or verified using the Oak Ridge supercomputers where they
analyzed the fluid coming from people's lungs who were very
sick with COVID and looking for genes that were massively
overexpressed and saw that the genes involved in--what do they
call it, the RAS system which is local and inflammatory
response and blood pressure regulation.
And so apparently, this hypothesis, which was verified on
the Oak Ridge supercomputers, explains everything from COVID
toe to the fact that the virus gets in through the blood-brain
barrier to the fact that vitamin D is a very promising
therapeutic and prophylactic. I was just wondering, is that on
any of your radar screens? Is that a real result coming from
the DOE supercomputers? Anyone familiar with that?
Dr. Mohnen. Yes, it absolutely is a real result. It comes
from Dan Jacobson's work. And he's got multiple papers, and
I've been reading a couple of them. He is top-notch world-class
systems biologist. I spoke to him personally for this panel. I
know him. He works in the bioenergy center. Because he's so
good at what he does--and he's done two--it's either the
largest or the fastest computational predictions using
computers anywhere in the world. He really is outstanding.
I talked to him about this because I couldn't understand
how he did it. And he told me--because he had to keep up his
other work, which was on microbes and plants--as this hits--and
he knew the systems biology approach and the computers because
this is what he does. He takes multiple pieces of data, uses
the computers, looks for connections, then reads the literature
deeply. He was working 21 hours a day for weeks and weeks on
end. And he brought in multiple medical people from multiple
institutions.
Now, what we have to say is when you do this kind of
systems biology approach--and--the data looked very compelling,
and he will say in his paper now it has to be tested. These
have to be tested in clinical trials. But the data are
incredibly robust. And I believe it's all being followed up,
but I know there are many more papers, so this----
Mr. Foster. Yes, his paper----
Dr. Mohnen [continuing]. Is top-notch.
Mr. Foster [continuing]. Identified a number of
therapeutic targets. And I presume those are being followed up
in clinical trials, though I'm not familiar with that.
Dr. Mohnen. I'm not sure, but I believe so, too.
Mr. Foster. Yes. All right. And my more general question
is one of the trends that people mentioned in biology is this
business of what's sometimes called cloud-based biology. And
that's where you have large farms of robots that will do
biological experiments. And so this is something where
potentially, you know, a scientist at a university can sit down
on their computer, define the experiment we want to, you know,
get this cell line and modify it genetically this way, expose
it to this, wait 18 days, and then, you know, section it up and
send me the photos. And so without actually ever touching or
owning or taking possession of the biological samples, you
could perform experiments.
And it strikes me this is something where there may be a
role for national labs to actually engage in gigantic purchases
of initial systems the same way we engage in new generations of
supercomputers, the new generations of experiments and then
open it up, you know, in a way very similar to supercomputers
where different university groups can sort of bid for time on
these things.
And I was wondering is that a sort of model that makes
sense to seed investments that can be immediately used by
universities? And this seems to relate to Dr. Wrighton's
comments earlier.
Dr. Wrighton. Yes, I am so excited, Congressman Foster, to
hear you say this because this is exactly up my alley. I mean,
I think that what we're finding at the user facilities is
they're very successful, and many of the key resources are
becoming fairly inundated, so the turnaround time or the
lifecycle of actually processing samples is somewhat delayed
just because of the demand, and so we really have to rethink
scalability in terms of maybe not one building but maybe like--
and there's a--there are some companies that you may be
familiar with, Emerald Cloud Labs and others where you can
basically--you know, they have these robotic facilities, and
you can log in and kind of high throughput with more
reproducibility and greater efficiency.
And so that will really allow us to run little pilot
studies, look at the data in real time, and then do bigger
experiments. And so it creates a much more dynamic and
efficient working environment than having to collect 400
samples and send them all in because that's the allocated time
you get.
So I think the future--if we're really going to talk about
how we can innovate and do more with what we have or even just
extend our resources in new ways, I think that's a very
exciting future.
Mr. Foster. Yes. And it would allow, you know, smaller
university-based researchers to compete at the very top level,
as well as dealing with the reproducibility crisis----
Dr. Wrighton. Absolutely.
Mr. Foster [continuing]. Some fraction of it at least in
biology that you publish the specifications that could
reproduce that at any robotic facility anywhere. I see my time
is up and yield back.
Chairwoman Fletcher. Thank you, Mr. Foster. I will now
recognize Mr. Casten for 5 minutes.
Mr. Casten. Thank you, Chairwoman Fletcher, and thanks to
our panel. This is going to surprise all of my colleagues, but
my questions are about climate change, not COVID.
I have--and, No. 1, we--you know, just [inaudible]
conclusions, we have got to get to zero net carbon emissions,
and we've got to get there yesterday. I am somewhat sanguine
about our path to get there in terms of our energy use because
I can identify technologies to make electricity and
transportation fuels, heat, the things we need for energy. I
have real concerns about what we are going to do in those
places where we use fossil fuels as a chemical input typically
to reduce organic compounds. How do we make fertilizer? How do
we make steel? How do we make silicon? How do we make
magnesium? And biology has a way to do that, right, with
photosynthesis is a way to reduce compounds with sunlight
input, some of the weird archaebacteria that live on volcanic
[inaudible].
And it strikes me that there are interesting research
projects that are scattered. I introduced a bill that's passed
through this Committee, H.R. 4320, the Clean Industrial
Technology Act, which has a purpose to bring all of the DOE
research around how do we decarbonize those hard-to-decarbonize
industries and bring it's one place?
And I guess I want to start with you, Dr. Maxon. Can you
give us any oversight of what if any programs you are aware of
that DOE is doing in that vein around how do we use biological
solutions to reduce inorganic materials? And what if anything
can we do to help accelerate that research?
Dr. Maxon. Thank you for that question. Biomanufacturing,
yes, in fact, the Department of Energy in January hosted an
InnovationXLab biomanufacturing summit directed on this very
topic and invited hundreds of companies to come in and see the
technologies, the assets, and the programs that the Department
of Energy has at its national labs to do just this, to reduce
the energy intensity of manufacturing and to use petroleum to
reduce petroleum feedstocks.
I mentioned a little while ago the billion-ton bioeconomy,
the billion tons of sustainable biomass. We're making big
progress in being able to convert that biomass into useful
things but can't do it cheaply yet.
There are a number of other programs. The Agile BioFoundry
is a Department of Energy program that is looking to speed for
industry and for academic partners the ability to design
biological systems to do just this, to harness them to do by a
manufacturing. So the Agile BioFoundry is a new one. The
Bioenergy Research Centers are focused on conversion of
lignocellulosic products, woody biomass, for example, into
fuels and bioproducts. So there are a number of them that
exist, but I would say that given the crisis, we could use a
lot more help in this regard, more of these and more pilot
fermentation facilities, steel, if you will, fermentation to
get us to that next scalable leap.
Mr. Casten. So if I could--and maybe others--I'm not sure
I've asked my question very well. The lignocellulosic
materials, making building materials, making products like--I
get that. What I--and I don't even understand the
thermodynamics well enough, but if we're going to take, you
know, nitrogen and make it into ammonia, I know how to do that
with natural gas. If we're going to take quartz silicon
dioxide, make it into silicone, I know how to do that with coal
or to reduce iron oxides into steel. Are there biological
pathways that we could imagine to use biological systems'
ability to reduce those compounds? And is there potential to
scale that up, or is there some reason why those are just--is
there something about, you know, the way that life has put
together the thermodynamics that makes that impossible?
Dr. Wrighton. I think, Congressman Casten, there's two
parts to this answer. One is the biological discovery, and I
think, you know, just two weeks ago it came out in the paper
looking at how you can produce ethylene with microbes using
enzymes that we never knew about until just this year. And do
it independent of oxygen, so do it independent of combustion.
So I think that there is this discovery aspect and there's that
basic science aspect, but the scalability part I think is the
yet-to-be-seen part for me in terms of harnessing these new
biological pathways and overcoming the thermodynamics within an
organism and then thinking about how we actually can develop
these precursors with, you know, more neutral carbon economy.
But I think that we're at the point now where we're able
to now mine and scratch the surface into the biology, and the
next phase of our discovery is going to be scaling, again, to
do these technologies--at least in these really new spaces, not
some of those like plant deconstruction and they're, you know,
10 or 15 years ahead of some of the more new discoveries we're
fighting about, microbial pathways for these compounds.
Mr. Casten. OK. Well, I'm out of time and yield back but
will maybe follow up with you offline because I'd like to get
some overview of where these programs are and what we could do
to accelerate because I do think we're out of time and we need
to----
Dr. Wrighton. OK. I look----
Mr. Casten. But 5 minutes, we're out of like--our species
is running out of time. But we'll continue that offline. Thank
you.
Chairwoman Fletcher. You are correct, Mr. Casten. Your 5
minutes has expired, and we will now recognize Mr. Beyer for 5
minutes.
Mr. Beyer. Thank you, Madam Chairman, very much. And thank
you, panelists, for an amazing amount of information. I'd like
to start with Dr. Mohnen, and thanks for your comments about
Dr. Jacobson and the work done at Oak Ridge. And I want to
thank Bill Foster for sending that article of that, which I
thought was just remarkable, the notion of crunching data,
40,000 genes, sending in a thousand genetic samples, two and a
half billion genetic combinations. And the articles themselves
really lead to some interesting thoughts about treatment. If
this thing is bradykinin storm thing is real, we could be in a
very different place in a couple weeks from now.
But, Dr. Mohnen, you're also the historian, so I want to
thank you for letting us know that the Human Genome Project
started through BER. And I wonder because I've always thought,
you know, Francis Collins, Frank Venter, George Church, how now
does JGI interact with NIH and with the other folks doing human
genomes?
Dr. Mohnen. Well, thank you for the question. I think it's
a very interesting one. But I think that there are other
panelists who probably have better information on that
interaction, so I think I will pass that off to someone who
knows more about that particularly.
Mr. Beyer. Dr. Wrighton?
Dr. Wrighton. So the question--sorry, could you repeat
your question?
Mr. Beyer. Well, so you have the Joint Genome Institute,
but then you also have NIH and Francis Collins, nebula
genomics, all the work being done at Harvard, MIT
(Massachusetts Institute of Technology). How do all those work
together?
Dr. Wrighton. Yes, and so I think--so to my knowledge--and
others may be able to have a broader perspective--is that the
Joint Genome Institute generally focuses on the nonhuman
aspects of the biology. That does not mean that they're
decoupled from NIH, and I want to stress that because there are
themes that you can do in one system like understand enzymes
and pathways and make discoveries, and then you can take those
to the NIH--and I've done this in my own career--and apply for
funding in the NIH and site those same processes in the human
data.
So it's not that they're--but the research focus of the
JGI is typically on nonhuman, you know, research, but it
doesn't mean the discoveries that are made at JGI by JGI
researchers or their collaborators do not then go and advance
through the NIH angle. So they're just kind of different
themes, but you can take ideas from one area and bring it to
the other and vice versa. Does that make sense?
Mr. Beyer. It does. And you set up my next question, which
I think is for Dr. Maxon because you're the Federal lab person.
Just reading your testimony and listening to it, I came up with
the CABBI (Center for Advanced Bioenergy and Bioproducts
Innovation), the CBI, the GLBRC (Great Lakes Bioenergy Research
Center), the JREI, the JGI, the ERC (Engineering Research
Centers), the NMDC (National Microbiome Data Collaborative),
the APPBD, the EMSL, the KBase (Systems Biology Knowledgebase),
the ADF, and others. Is this the idea that we have micro-
focused so many different places or is this empire-building or
why do we have such an incredible proliferation of separate
institutes within the Department of Energy just on biology?
Dr. Maxon. Thank you for the question. The biological
challenges are enormous, and they are complex. And each one of
those four Bioenergy Research Centers that you mentioned is
working on a different way to attack the similar problem. And
so it's a way to have nonredundant maximum shots on goal to
achieve the solution rather than putting all your money in one
basket.
Going back to your question about NIH for a second, I'd
like to weigh in on that as well for just a minute to say that
the National Microbiome Data Collaborative is a brand new DOE
program that is intended to take all microbiome data, as Dr.
Wrighton was just talking about, and make that data fair,
findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable, meaning it
doesn't matter whether the microbiome data came from an NIH
researcher or a DOE researcher or a USDA (United States
Department of Agriculture) researcher. All those data based on
the vision, should be able to be findable, interoperable, and
used together to develop all new theories and hypotheses and
experimentation programs. So that new thing is helping to
bridge the gap.
Mr. Beyer. That's terrific. And one last question, Dr.
Maxon. We have at least three prominent women scientists on our
panel today. Does this mean that women are finally assuming
their rightful place in science?
Dr. Maxon. Wow. I'll say yes.
Mr. Beyer. OK, great. Madam Chair, I yield back.
Chairwoman Fletcher. Thank you.
Mr. Beyer. Madam Chairwoman, yield back.
Chairwoman Fletcher. Thank you, Mr. Beyer, great last
question. And it is wonderful to see the expertise assembled on
this panel, the incredible women here, but really the efforts
of everybody at our national labs, the work you have done in
response to the coronavirus pandemic and more broadly, so it's
really wonderful for us to hear from you this afternoon. So I
thank you all very much for your participation, for your
insights, and for your work for our country right now. We need
you, and we are so lucky to have you. So thank you so much for
your testimony here today.
Before I bring the hearing to a close, I just want to let
my colleagues know that the record will remain open for 2 weeks
for additional statements from Members and for any additional
questions that the Committee may ask of the witnesses.
With that, the witnesses are excused, and I'm going to use
my gavel here so you can all hear. The witnesses are excused,
and the hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 3:01 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]
Appendix
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Answers to Post-Hearing Questions
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