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Researchers at Department of Energy laboratories and companies with research funded by DOE have won 35 of the 100 awards given this year by R&D Magazine for the most outstanding technology developments with commercial potential. Examples of their work include: a carbon-based coating harder and slicker than Teflon and an adaptive optics system that combines technologies from astronomy and micromachining to advance the study and treatment of retinal diseases.

Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham today presented Francis Collins and Aristides Patrinos with the Secretary's Gold Award, the department's highest honorary award, for their leadership of the government's Human Genome Project. Francis Collins is the director of the National Human Genome Research Institute at the National Institutes of Health, Department of Health and Human Services. Ari Patrinos heads the Office of Biological and Environmental Research at the Department of Energy's Office of Science.

University of Chicago researchers have discovered that gamma-amino butyric acid plays a crucial role in plant reproduction. This research is important to the agriculture industry--which provides 80 percent of the world's food supply--and has broad implications for cell-to-cell interactions and signaling in plant and animal systems. The research, supported in part by the U.S. Department of Energy, is reported in the July 11, 2003, issue of Cell.

Two hundred thirty four small businesses will receive Energy Department grants totaling $102 million to conduct innovative research. The projects are in 47 technical topic areas supporting programs such as fossil, nuclear and renewable energy, energy efficiency, environmental cleanup, national security, biological and environmental research, and high energy and nuclear physics.

Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory have demonstrated that cadmium--found in some industrial workplaces and in cigarette smoke--releases calcium from bone within hours of exposure. Knowing how this toxic metal interacts with bone may lead to the screening necessary to detect the early or pre-stages of excess bone loss--before much damage occurs.

Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory and the University of Chicago have made a breakthrough in the study of Alzheimer's disease: discovery of the strategic sites where amino acids can be removed from self-assembling, insoluble peptides that form fibrils in the brains of patients with the disease. With this discovery, researchers can now study the self-assembly process of the entire peptide.

The Department of Energy will fund the Institute for Biological Energy Alternatives, headed by J. Craig Venter, Ph.D., $3 million per year for the next three years for research to better understand microbial communities and to develop new, biological methods to capture carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and to produce hydrogen. With the new funds, IBEA scientists will determine the genetic sequences of all the microorganisms occurring in a natural microbial community.

A special section of the April 11 issue of Science--Building on the DNA Revolution--features two articles on the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Science participation in the Human Genome Project and future directions--the Genomes to Life project.

The U.S. will join the negotiations for the construction and operation of a major international magnetic fusion research project. Known as ITER, the project's mission is to demonstrate the scientific and technological feasibility of fusion energy. ITER will provide 500 megawatts of fusion power for 500 seconds or longer. ITER will be the first fusion device to produce a burning plasma.

As a result of recent breakthroughs in science and engineering technology, Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham announced that DOE will commit $9 million over three years to augment artificial retina research, including support for a laboratory within the Doheny Eye Institute on the USC campus. Five DOE national labs, partnering with the University of Southern California and North Carolina State University, are designing a micro-electronic device that would be implanted in the eye on the surface of the retina.