RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS

Bette Korber, a senior scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory and the New Mexico Consortium, recently has published research which compares the COVID-19 virus with a very different virus HIV-1. This work published in the July issue of Cell Host & Microbe is titled, HIV-1 and SARS-CoV-2: Patterns in the evolution of two pandemic pathogens.

New Mexico Consortium scientist Wataru Nishima and colleagues recently published their work, “Full-Length Computational Model of the SARS-CoV-2 Spike Protein and Its Implications for a Viral Membrane Fusion Mechanism“, in Viruses, and open access journal by MDPI. The SARS-CoV-2 virus (COVID-19) emerged in December 2019 and quickly spread across the world due to it’s high

Geoff Reeves, a senior scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory and the New Mexico Consortium, has recently published a paper titled, Multi-Event Analysis of Plasma and Field Variations in Source of Stable Auroral Red (SAR) Arcs in Inner Magnetosphere During Non-Storm-Time Substorms, in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Space Physics. The stable auroral red (SAR)

UNM Scientists Develop A More Accessible Sensor The Smart Management of Infrastructure Laboratory (SMILab), located at the University of New Mexico (UNM) Center for Advanced Research Computing (CARC), has announced that as a part of the Low-Cost Efficient Wireless Intelligent Sensors (LEWIS) project, the have developed a new strain sensor called the LEWIS-S. What are

Specifica scientists, Frank Erasmus, Sara D’Angelo, Fortunato Ferrara, Leslie Naranjo, and Andrew Bradbury along with New Mexico Consortium scientist, André A. Teixeira have recently put out a new publication on antibody library diversity in a paper titled, A single donor is sufficient to produce a highly functional in vitro antibody library, in Communications Biology. The

Alisha Vira, a student scientist at the New Mexico Consortium, along with colleagues Brian Larsen, Ruth Skoug, and Philip Fernandes, recently published their work, Bayesian Model for HOPE Mass Spectrometers on Van Allen Probes, in the Journal of Geophysical Research. The ion composition and time variation of space plasmas are important to understand as it

Anna Llobet Megias Presents at American Physical Society Meeting   Anna Llobet Megias, a Los Alamos National Laboratory scientist and New Mexico Consortium affiliate, presents at the APS April Meeting, held Saturday–Tuesday, April 17–20, 2021. The American Physical Society (APS) is a nonprofit membership organization that has the goal of  advancing the knowledge of physics.

Using a Mathematical Model to Compare SARS-CoV-2, MERS-CoV, and SARS-CoV   In a new publication, A quantitative model used to compare within host SARS-CoV-2, MERS-CoV, and SARS-CoV dynamics provides insights into the pathogenesis and treatment of SARS-CoV-2, author Alan Perelson and colleagues use a computer model to compare the SARS-CoV-2, MERS-CoV, and SARS-CoV viruses. Currently, scientists

Alina Corcoran, a New Mexico Consortium research scientist, and Ryan Hunt, the Co-Founder & Chief Technology Officer at ALGIX | BLOOM, have recently published a new article in the Journal of Algal Research. Their paper titled “Capitalizing on Harmful Algae Blooms: from Problems to Products” has now been peer reviewed and is available online at

Los Alamos National Laboratory and New Mexico Consortium affiliate scientist Alan S. Perelson, along with colleague Ruian Ke, have reviewed the literature on modeling COVID-19 and other infectious diseases. Recently, their review has been published as a paper titled, Mechanistic Modeling of SARS-CoV-2 and Other Infectious Diseases and the Effects of Therapeutics in Clinical Pharmacology

Karen Rieck, a New Mexico Consortium research scientist and Los Alamos National Laboratory guest scientist, has presented her work at the 52nd Lunar and Planetary Science Conference (LPSC) held virtually from March 15–19, 2021. The Lunar and Planetary Science Conference (LPSC) is recognized as the world’s premier planetary science conference, bringing together international specialists in

Alan Perelson, a LANL scientist and New Mexico Consortium affiliated scientist, recently published his paper titled, Success of prophylactic antiviral therapy for SARS-CoV-2: Predicted critical efficacies and impact of different drug-specific mechanisms of action in PLoS Computational Biology. Currently, several repurposed drugs are being tested as a medication or as a preventative drug in order

Esteban Rougier, a Los Alamos National Laboratory scientist and New Mexico Consortium affiliate, has recently reported  on the work conducted under the Large University Project titled “Correlating Damage, Fracture and Permeability in Rocks subjected to High Strain Rate Loading”. This was a three year collaborative project between Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), via the Center

Martin Klein, a LANL Scientist in the Research Library at LANL and New Mexico Consortium affiliate, along with Shawn M Jones, a PhD student and Graduate Research Assistant at LANL have been working on a project titled “The Dark and Stormy Archives”.  The project is lead by their collaborators at Old Dominion University and is

Martin Klein, a Los Alamos National Laboratory scientist and New Mexico Consortium affiliate, is working on an internet preservation project titled, “Developing Bloom Filters for Web Archives’ Holdings”. This project is an international collaboration with the National and University Library Zagreb, Croatia The ultimate goal of Klein’s project is to provide web archives with a

Emma Goldberg, a Los Alamos National Laboratory and  New Mexico Consortium scientist, has recently published her work “Heterogeneity in the rate of molecular sequence evolution substantially impacts the accuracy of detecting shifts in diversification rates” in the science journal Evolution. Lineage-splitting and extinctions in the tree of life have taken place often throughout the history

Garrett Kenyon, a physicist and neuroscientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory and the New Mexico Consortium, has his artificial intelligence (AI) research featured in Scientific American in an article titled Lack of Sleep Could Be a Problem for AIs. Machines such as a refrigerator do not need to sleep, but Kenyon’s research has found that

Dr. Richard Sayre and his team of scientists at the New Mexico Consortium, has had their research published in Research Features in an article titled “Optimising the photosynthetic efficiency in plants and green algae for biomass production“. During photosynthesis, plants and green algae absorb light from the sun at a very fast rate. This process

A collaboration between citizen scientists and scientists Joshua Semeter, Michael Hunnekuhl, Elizabeth MacDonald, Michael Hirsch, Neil Zeller, Alexei Chernenkoff, and Jun Wang, has led to the publication of a new paper titled, The Mysterious Green Streaks Below STEVE published in the new, open-access journal AGU Advances. Strong thermal emission velocity enhancement, or the subauroral phenomenon known as

Meghna Rajvanshi from Reliance Industries Ltd. and Richard Sayre of the New Mexico Consortium recently published their work, Recent Advances in Algal Biomass Production, in IntechOpen. The use of algae used as a renewable energy biofuel for all of our demands has yet to become a reality. This paper investigates what progress has been achieved

Rex Hjelm, a scientist at the New Mexico Consortium and Los Alamos National Laboratory, has new research findings that help us to understand how to maximize the production of natural gas. He just had his paper: Reduced methane recovery at high pressures due to methane trapping in shale nanopores, accepted to Nature, Communications Earth & Environment.

Jacob Springer, a computer science student at Swathmore College, and Garrett Kenyon, a scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory and the New Mexico Consortium, recently published a paper titled It’s Hard for Neural Networks to Learn the Game of Life in the open access journal arXiv. The Game of Life is a cellular automaton that was created

New Mexico Consortium (NMC) scientist Tom Terwilliger and an international team including scientists at Los Alamos National Laboratory, Baylor College of Medicine, Cambridge University, and Berkeley Lab have developed a technique to improve the resolution of cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM). Cryo-EM maps are a type of 3D molecular structure map that are created by taking many

Rex P. Hjelm, a scientist at the New Mexico Consortium and Los Alamos National Laboratory, and Joseph T. Mang of Los Alamos National Laboratory have published a new paper titled: “Preferred Void Orientation in Uniaxially Pressed PBX 9502”. This work has recently been accepted to the journal Propellants, Explosives, Pyrotechnics. This research used the scattering

Spartina Biotechnologies has just released exciting news of their latest technologies called SIREN™, which is a promising treatment to cure COVID-19. This new technology is designed to stop the replication of the COVID-19 virus in the infected patient while also giving a kick-start to the patient’s own innate immunity. This gives them double protection for

Scientists are keeping an eye on COVID-19 mutations. Recently, Nature has published the article The Coronavirus is Mutating – Does It Matter?, which talks about the work of Bette Korber, a Los Alamos National Laboratory scientist and New Mexico Consortium affiliate. In March 2020, David Montefiori, who directs an AIDS-vaccine research laboratory at Duke University

The Van Allen Probes Project has a new journal publication accepted by Space Weather. The publication titled Defining Radiation Belt Enhancement Events Based on Probability Distributions, is authored by Geoff Reeves, LANL scientist and New Mexico Consortium affiliate, along with colleagues Elizabeth M. Vandegriff, Jonathan T. Niehof, Steven K. Morley, Gregory S. Cunningham, Michael G.

The Van Allen Probes project continues to put out publications this July and August, with three published papers, three papers in press, and two submitted papers (See below for a list of publications). This NASA funded project conducts research on Space Weather, the environment and activity in space that can harm satellites and endanger Earth-based

For the last 4 years, the New Mexico Consortium (NMC) has been proud to support the research of Dr. Christian M. Carrico at New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology Civil & Environmental Engineering. This research project titled “Climate Relevant Aerosol and Gas-Phase Properties in the Southwest US” is in collaboration with Los Alamos National

New research recently published in JGR:Atmospheres and supported by the New Mexico Consortium, shows that the impact of particles found in wildfire smoke on climate may be less than was previously thought. This is due to reactions that happen when the plume mixes with clean air, which decrease the climate-warming effects. In this megafire study,

Garrett Kenyon and his team of neural network researchers at Los Alamos National Laboratory and the New Mexico Consortium recently were featured in an Inside Science article Why Artificial Brains Need Sleep. What are artificial neural networks used for these days? They are used in everything from identifying a pedestrian crossing the street to diagnosing

Bette Korber, a scientist at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, is the lead author on a new paper titled Tracking Changes in SARS-CoV-2 Spike: Evidence that D614G Increases Infectivity of the COVID-19 Virus, which came out in the July 2 publication of the scientific journal Cell. Korber and colleagues’ research shows there has been specific change,

Rex P. Hjelm, a scientist with the New Mexico Consortium and Los Alamos National Laboratory recently published his latest research in the ACS Journal, Energy and Fuels, titled Small-angle Neutron Scattering (SANS) Characterization of Clay- and Carbonate-rich Shale at Elevated Pressures. Conventional hydrocarbon resources are decreasing over time as we use them. Fortunately, new technologies

  New Mexico Consortium scientist, Joseph Msanne, along with colleagues Shawn Starkenburg and Juergen Polle, recently published an article titled An Assessment of Heterotrophy and Mixotrophy in Scenedesmus and its Utilization in Wastewater Treatment, in the June 2020 issue of Algal Research.  This review looks at whether growing algae for biofuels using wastewater from different

New Mexico Consortium and Los Alamos National Laboratory scientist Bette Korber has recently published new work on the origins and spread of the coronavirus pandemic, and found that the virus is well suited to propagate from bats and pangolins to people. She and her colleagues newest paper is titled, Emergence of SARS-CoV-2 Through Recombination and

New Mexico Consortium (NMC) scientists Guangxi Wu, Lin Ma, Richard Sayre, and Choon-Hwan Lee recently published an article, Identification of the Optimal Light Harvesting Antenna Size for High-Light Stress Mitigation in Plants, in the journal Frontiers of Plant Science It is well known that the low efficiency of photosynthesis is one of the main constraints

Karissa Sanbonmatsu, a principal investigator at Los Alamos National Laboratory and the New Mexico Consortium, is featured in Part 4 of the TED Radio Hour episode The Biology of Sex. TED Radio Hour is a co-production of NPR and TED that investigates the biggest questions of our time with the help of the world’s greatest thinkers. The

Among other New Mexico Consortium (NMC) news and highlights, four papers from the Van Allen Probes project at the NMC were among the top 10% downloaded papers in the Journal of Geophysical Research (JGR) Space Physics, and one paper was in the top 10% of downloaded papers in Geophysical Research Letters. The NMC wants to

Xiangrong Fu, a scientist at the New Mexico Consortium, recently published a paper titled, Heating of Heavy Ions in Low-beta Compressible Turbulence in The Astrophysical Journal. Enhancement of heavy minor ions (elements heavier than Helium make up a very small fraction of particles in the solar wind) in flare-associated solar energetic particle (SEP) events remains

Sangeeta Negi and Richard Sayre, New Mexico Consortium research scientists, publish their work titled Light regulation of light-harvesting antenna size substantially enhances photosynthetic efficiency and biomass yield in green algae in The Plant Journal. At the end of this century, the human population is estimated to increase from 7.4 billion to 11 billion. One of

New Mexico Consortium scientist Rex Hjelm recently published his work, a collaboration with colleagues at the University of California Santa Barbara, titled Microstructural characterization of a star-linear polymer blend under shear flow by using rheo-SANS in the Journal of Rheology. This paper addresses the question of the response of a polymer as forces applied under

Azzurra Volpi, a postdoctoral researcher with the University of New Mexico, and Markus Hehlen, a research scientist with Los Alamos National Laboratory and the New Mexico Consortium, recently published a paper in Optics Express titled: “Optical refrigeration: the role of parasitic absorption at cryogenic temperatures“. Co-authors on this paper include Junwei Meng, Aram Gragossian, Alexander

Scientists create the first 3-D image of an RNA molecule. Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) and New Mexico Consortium (NMC) scientists Doo Nam Kim, Scott P. Hennelly and Karissa Y. Sanbonmatsu and team recently published their  work in the article, Zinc-finger protein CNBP alters the 3-D structure of lncRNA Braveheart in solution, in Nature Communications.

Waco Today published an article, Grape Expectations: Finding Successes in Battle with Vineyard Disease, which features the work of New Mexico Consortium scientist Goutam Gupta and his research finding success in stemming a disease that affects vineyards. Pierce’s Disease is a deadly disease that affects grapevines, and is caused by the bacterium Xylella fastidiosa, which

Rex P. Hjelm, a Los Alamos National Laboratory and New Mexico Consortium scientist, presented the invited talk, Ionomer Physics and Fuel Cell Engineering December 4, 2019 at the BP/KRF Fellows’ Global Conference in Seoul, South Korea. The goal of the BP program is to enhance the R&D level of Korea by attracting outstanding overseas scientists

Emily Gearhart, a Seminole State College student who worked as an intern from July – August 2019 at the New Mexico Consortium Biolab, presented her research at the Honors Research Symposium last week. The research symposium was an internal event at the Sanford, FL campus organized by the Grindle Honors Institute and was attended by

Co-PIs Alina Corcoran of the New Mexico Consortium (NMC) and Shawn Starkenburg of Los Alamos National Laboratory, along with industrial partners, are starting an exciting four year project built upon outdoor algal cultivation. The project is entitled Optimizing Selection Pressures and Pest Management to Maximize Algal Biomass Yield (OSPREY). In the biofuel industry scientists often

Tom Terwilliger teaches a course on Cryo-EM and Crystallography. The course was held on September 4-5, 2019 at the University of Buenos Aires, Argentina, and was titled Cryo-EM and Crystallography in the Forefront of Structural Biology. Tom Terwilliger is a Los Alamos National Laboratory scientist and New Mexico Consortium affiliate. Cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM) is an

Trait Biosciences Inc. is a biotechnology company based out of Los Alamos, NM. In recent news, Trait Biosciences congratulates their Chief Science Officer, Dr. Richard Sayre, and a team of industry scientists at the New Mexico Consortium. This congratulations is for their publication of the article “Fine-tuning the Photosynthetic Light Harvesting Apparatus for Improved Photosynthetic

Andre Teixeira Publishes on Disease Diagnostic and Detection Methods. Teixeira, of the New Mexico Consortium, is one of several authors on a new publication in Toxins titled Recombinant Antibodies against Mycolactone. This research strives to find better methods for fast and easy detection as well as diagnostic methods of the disease Buruli ulcer. Buruli ulcer

Geoff Reeves and Colleagues publish research on Earth’s radiation belts. This group recently published 5 new papers in the last quarter. Reeves is a Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) Fellow with the Space Science Applications group and a New Mexico Consortium affiliate. According to the LANL Space Science Applications website, “The Space Science and Applications

One joint project currently taking place at the New Mexico Consortium is measuring the retinal response in frogs. This project titled Microimaging/Modeling of Retinal Responses Measured with Laser Magnetometer is funded by the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering. This project is a collaboration between LANL Staff Scientist and NMC Affiliate Igor Savukov, NMC

Capturing the scholarly record is now a concern to many scientists. Researchers at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) and the New Mexico Consortium are concerned with archiving scholarly work done over the internet. In the past, research communication was a paper-based endeavor and over time scholars have transitioned to using web-based methods for communicating and

NMC Researcher Shovon Mandal Specializes in Algal Biotechnology. Shovon Mandal, an Associate Research Scientist at the New Mexico Consortium (NMC), specializes in algal ecology and biotechnology. He received his PhD in Agricultural & Food Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur, where he worked on algal physiology and biodiesel production. Prior to that, Mandal

STEVE/Aurorasaurus Team awarded the Robert H. Goddard Group Honor Award. The New Mexico Consortium takes great pleasure in announcing that the STEVE/Aurorasaurus research team is being awarded NASA GSFC’s 2018 Robert H. Goddard Group Honor Award for Exceptional Achievement in Science. The STEVE/Aurorasaurus team, led by Liz MacDonald, a space scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space

Scientists create the largest simulation of an entire gene of DNA. In order to complete this task, these researchers at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) and the New Mexico Consortium (NMC) modeled one billion atoms. This amazing feat will help scientists better understand and develop cures for cancer and other diseases. Karissa Sanbonmatsu, a LANL

Symposium on Immunology of Human Diseases Supported by New Mexico Consortium and Los Alamos National Laboratory Venue: Hilton Santa Fe Historic Plaza, Santa Fe, NM, USA Dates: July 28-31, 2019 Symposium Home Page and Registration Info Immune systems, including both innate and adaptive immunity, sense, signal, and counter dangers posed by deadly pathogens, cancer, and

New Mexico Alzheimer’s Workshop 2019 May 22, 2019 Inn & Spa at Loretto Santa Fe Workshop Home Page and Registration Info New Mexico is in a unique position for advancement in basic science, clinical, and epidemiological research of Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias, due to the presence of two national laboratories, as well as many

The NMC supports and encourages scientists to offer opportunities to students interested in gaining research experience. Over the years we have had many students researchers in such topics as high performance computing, general greenhouse work, administrative tasks, and plant biology research. Students are paired up with NMC staff or researchers who need an extra hand,

Sean Blanchard, a Linux and HPC expert at the Ultrascale Systems Research Center  (USRC) at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) presented at Multicore World 2019 on Tuesday February 12, 2019. Multicore World, which is in its 8th consecutive edition, is a gathering of experts and leaders from all over the globe to attend and contribute

Congratulations to Elizabeth MacDonald and Matt Heavner for their most recent Aurorasaurus publication in AGU100 Earth and Space Science titled “Aurorasaurus Database of Real-Time, Crowd-Sourced Aurora Data for Space Weather Research“. This technical report documents the details of Aurorasaurus citizen collected science data for the period spanning 2015 and 2016. Aurorasaurus citizen science data is a collection of real

Rex Hjelm, a New Mexico Consortium Biolab Researcher publishes his work on Flow-through compression cell for small-angle and ultra-small-angle neutron scattering measurements. This research aims to understand measurements of geological materials taken in the field that are under compression with hydrostatic fluid pressure. Understanding the behavior of these materials provides critical information for application-driven research.

Dr. Alina Corcoran, NMC Researcher and LANL Guest Scientist, presented at the Advanced Bioeconomy Leadership Conference (ABLC) Global 2018 last week. This conference was held November 6-9, 2018 in San Francisco, CA. The ABLC Global is a connected series of 17 conferences and forums on the most important issues in the bioeconomy right now. Corcoran’s presentation was on Transforming Challenges

Michael Denton, an NMC researcher, and Lauren Blum, a scientist with NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, have been awarded a NASA grant to study plasma structure and composition as a driver of wave growth in the inner magnetosphere. Why is this important in space science research? Electromagnetic (EM ) waves accelerate electron particles to high

Molecular biologist Amanda Barry and a team at Los Alamos National Laboratory’s Bio-energy and Biome Sciences group are conducting research on a specific strain of algae in order to determine if it can be produced quickly and at low cost. If so, this algae hold potential to be a source of renewable fuel that can

New Mexico Consortium Biolab researchers, Panagiotis Lymperopoulos, Joseph Msanne and Roel Rabara, have recently published their work “Phytochrome and Phytohormones: Working in Tandem for Plant Growth and Development” in the July 2018 issues of Frontiers in Plant Science, section Plant Physiology. This publication is a review that presents a representative regulatory model, highlights the successes

Amanda Barry, a Los Alamos National Laboratory scientist and affiliate of the New Mexico Consortium, published her work on algae using raw plants as a carbon energy source. This research has shown that the microalgae, Auxenochlorella protothecoides, is capable of directly degrading and using non-food plant substrates for improved cell growth and lipid production. This

Scientists have learned that cosmic ray neutrons coming from space slam in to the processors of supercomputers and cause them to have memory errors or even to crash. This has been a problem since Seymour Cray built a supercomputer and gave it to Los Alamos National Laboratory for a 6 month trial in the 1970s.

Wataru Nishima of the New Mexico Consortium has co-authored a recent publication showing a computational approach to provide insight into the structure of both Ebola and Zika viruses as they invade a host’s cells. Both the Ebola and Zika viruses are similar in how they first infiltrate a host’s cells. They use a surface protein

New Mexico Consortium Biolab Researcher Richard Sayre, founder of start-up company Pebble Labs Inc., recently published his work titled Provitamin A biofortification of cassava enhances shelf life but reduces dry matter content of storage roots due to altered carbon partitioning into starch. This research is also featured on the cover page of the Plant Biotechnology