Leaders in quantum science reflect, plan for future innovation
The Center for Bioenergy Innovation, or CBI, at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory has promoted Melissa Cregger and Carrie Eckert to serve as chief science officers, advancing the center’s mission of innovations for new domestic biofuels, chemicals and materials.
The fifth annual Quantum Science Center, or QSC, Summer School at Purdue University, held Apr. 21 through Apr. 25, 2025, welcomed its largest group of students to date. Experts from industry, academia and national laboratories gathered at the Purdue Quantum Science and Engineering Institute to share their research in multiple areas of quantum science.
Jesse Labbé aims to leverage biology, computation and engineering to address societal challenges related to energy, national security and health, while enhancing U.S. competitiveness. Labbé emphasizes the importance of translating groundbreaking research into practical applications that have real-world impact.
Scientists at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the University of Colorado Boulder used a gene-silencing tool and a large library of molecular guides to understand how photosynthetic bacteria adapt to light and temperature changes. They found that even partial suppression of certain genes yielded big benefits in modifying the stress response of wild microbes.
Working in collaboration with researchers from Oak Ridge National Laboratory, D-Wave Quantum Inc., a quantum computing systems, software and services provider, has shown its annealing quantum computing prototype has the potential to operate faster than the leading supercomputing systems.
ORNL scientists are using synthetic communities to simplify underground ecosystems to better understand the interactions between plants and microbes, informing the development of better bioenergy crops for domestic energy production.
Mariam Kiran, a quantum research scientist at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory, was recently honored as a finalist at the British Council’s Study U.K. Alumni Awards 2025, which celebrate the achievements of U.K. alumni worldwide.
Vilmos Kertesz, senior staff in the Biosciences Division at ORNL, has received a 2025 Al Yergey Mass Spectrometry Scientist Award from the American Society for Mass Spectrometry. The award recognizes his contributions to the fields of analytical chemistry and mass spectrometry.
Robert “Bob” Hettich, an ORNL Corporate Fellow, is a pioneer in using mass spectrometry to uncover how microbes interact within complex environments and influence larger systems like plants and humans. A founder of the field of metaproteomics, he leads research that supports bioenergy, environmental resilience and health through advanced protein analysis.
ORNL researchers helped introduce college students to quantum computing for the first time during the 2025 Winter Classic Invitational, providing hands-on access to real quantum hardware and training future high-performance computing users through a unique challenge that bridged classical and quantum technologies.