After screening at least 50 different cyclodextrins, LLNL researchers found that the drug Subetadex shows enhanced affinities for fentanyl and its analogues.  Subetadex is a smaller version of sugammadex and with a smaller central cavity, allows it to bind extremely well to fentanyl by comparison.  A pharmacokinetic study showed a rapid clearance of this promising candidate from…

Rather than using genes carried by viruses, LLNL researchers have developed an alternative approach of delivering CAR to T-cells in form of proteins that are carried on the surface of nanolipoprotein (NLP) particles. NLPs are naturally occurring molecules that serve as structural mimics of cell membranes.  They can self-assemble and provide a structure or platform for connecting other…

This LLNL invention allows for the fabrication of complex waveplate features and topologies from fused silica, a highly desirable and durable waveplate material.  It also is a unique technique for density multiplication and high-fidelity bidirectional deposition, which can create optical components that are generally for entirely new classes of optical materials.

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This LLNL invention concerns a method for patterning the index of refraction by fabricating a spatially invariant metasurface, and then apply spatially varied mechanical loading to compress the metasurface features vertically and spread them radially. In doing so, the index of refraction can be re-written on the metasurface, thus enabling index patterning. This process allows rapid 'rewriting…

This novel invention specifically enables the fabrication of arbitrarily tailored birefringence characteristics in nano-structured meta-surfaces on non-birefringent substrates (e.g. fused silica). The birefringent nano-structured meta-surface is produced by angled directional reactive ion beam etching through a nano-particle mask. This method enables the simultaneous tailoring of refractive…

This invention (US Patent No. 11,294,103) is an extension of another LLNL invention, US Patent No. 10,612,145, which utilizes a thin sacrificial metal mask layer deposited on a dielectric substrate (e.g. fused silica) and subsequently nanostructured through a laser generated selective thermal de-wetting process.

This invention consists of a method of forming nanoscale metal lines to produce a grating-like mask with wide area coverage over the surface of a durable optical material such as fused silica. Subsequent etching processes transfer the metal mask to the underlying substrate forming a birefringent metasurface. This method enables the production of ultrathin waveplates for high power laser…

Heat sensitive materials such as piezoelectric and MEMS devices and assemblies, magnetic sensors, nonlinear optical crystals, laser glass or solid-state laser materials, etc. cannot be exposed to excess temperatures which in the context of this invention, means materials that cannot be exposed to temperatures greater than 50°C (122°F). LLNL’s invention describes a low-temperature method of…

This novel method of producing waveplates from isotropic optical materials (e.g. fused silica) consists of forming a void-dash metasurface using the following process steps:

To address shortcomings of current liposome drug delivery systems, the patented innovation uses drug-loaded liposomes containing carbon nanotube porins (CNTPs) inserted into the liposomal membranes for the delivery of the encapsulated drugs. Short CNTPs (10 nm in length) with narrow diameter (0.8 nm) has been demonstrated to facilitate efficient fusion of lipid bilayers resulting in the…

A new approach of developing synthetic antibacterial mineral assemblages can be used as an alternative treatment when traditional antibiotics fail in clinical and agricultural settings. Mineral mixtures can be synthesized with tunable metal release and reactive oxygen species generation that are capable of killing human pathogens and promoting wound healing. One of the key components in the…

The method described in a pending patent application uses a novel thiacrown (dibenzohexathia-18-crown-6) for efficient extraction of ^197m,gHg and ^197gHg from irradiated Pt target foils. The separation of ^197m,gHg and ^197gHg from Pt foils using this novel thiacrown was found to be highly specific. No detectable amount of the Pt foil was seen in the…

Combining the principles of nanotechnology, cell-free protein synthesis and microfluidics, LLNL researchers have developed a reusable, portable programmable system that can create purified, concentrated protein product in vitro in a microfluidic device containing nucleic acids.

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) is offering the opportunity to collaborate in accelerating artificial intelligence (AI) for applied science, including research in key areas such as advanced material design, 3D printing, predictive biology, energy systems, “self-driving” lasers and fusion energy research.

Clinical images have a wealth of data that are currently untapped by physicians and machine learning (ML) methods alike. Most ML methods require more data than is available to sufficiently train them. In order to obtain all data contained in a clinical image, it is imperative to be able to utilize multimodal, or various types of, data such as tags or identifications, especially where spatial…

Some COVID-19 diagnoses are utilizing computed tomography (CT)-scans for triage. CT-scans produce immediate results with high sensitivity. The digital images produced by a CT-scan require physicians to identify objects within the image to determine the presence of disease. Object identification can be done using machine learning (ML) techniques such as deep learning (DL) to improve speed and…

MimicGAN represents a new generation of methods that can “self-correct” for unseen corruptions in the data out in the field. This is particularly useful for systems that need to be deployed autonomously without needing constant intervention such as Automated Driver Assistance Systems. MimicGAN achieves this by treating every test sample as “corrupt” by default. The goal is to determine (a) the…

LLNL scientists developed novel hydrogels, which are biodegradable soft materials synthesized by a water-soluble polymer. Incorporating silver imparts antimicrobial activity to the material at low concentration compared to currently used silver nanoparticles. Our hydrogels are composed of silver ions instead of silver nanoparticles, which eliminates the toxicity concerns of modern silver…

LLNL has developed a new system, called the Segmentation Ensembles System, that provides a simple and general way to fuse high-level and low-level information and leads to a substantial increase in overall performance of digital image analysis. LLNL researchers have demonstrated the effectiveness of the approach on applications ranging from automatic threat detection for airport security, to…