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Founded in 1931, Ernest Orlando Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory is the oldest of the national labs and has produced nine Nobel Prize winners, including Ernest O. Lawrence himself, whose invention of the cyclotron earned him the sobriquet "father of big science." The lab continues to be renowned for its accelerator-based research program, with applications in materials science, biology, medicine and chemistry. Los Alamos National Laboratory, established in 1943 as part of the Manhattan Project, developed the world's first atomic bomb and continues to play a major role in national security, though the lab's focus has shifted from weapons production to weapons stewardship, nuclear nonproliferation and monitoring of biological agents. Changing priorities have compelled the lab to look beyond national security issues, and led it to apply defense-based technologies to research in biomedical science, environmental protection and cleanup, computational science, materials science and other basic sciences. Established in 1952 as a second national weapons laboratory, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory has also broadened its focus, applying its knowledge in nuclear science and engineering to become a leading center for magnetic and laser fusion energy, nonnuclear energy, biomedicine and environmental science.
"When you have a project above a certain scale—whether it's large in physical terms or in cost—a wedding of the two sides becomes extremely useful," says UCLA Professor of Physics Claudio Pellegrini, whose interest in X-ray-free electron lasers has led to productive partnerships with both Los Alamos and the DOE-funded Stanford Linear Accelerator Center. Though UCLA doesn't have a national laboratory in its own backyard—Los Alamos is in New Mexico, Berkeley and Livermore in Northern California—Patel is determined to solidify the future relationship between UCLA and the labs. Among his initiatives is a new visiting-faculty/visiting-scientist program designed to foster more exchanges, as well as formal research collaborations, between the institutions. The Berkeley Lab's strength in high-energy accelerator sources makes partnerships with UCLA a natural, given the university's longtime leadership in the field. For example, the two institutions are collaborating in the development of ultra-small synchrotrons at UCLA that could complement the Berkeley Lab's bigger machines, serving as "feeders" to the lab's large-scale projects. Similarly, the university and Los Alamos are formalizing ad hoc relationships a number of UCLA physicists enjoy with the lab, especially in research involving free-electron lasers. Los Alamos scientist Bill Cottingame has spent much of the past year at UCLA working with faculty from the Institute of the Environment on an eye-safe Light Detection and Ranging center. The LIDAR facility, the first of its kind in Los Angeles, will be designed to monitor air pollution by sending out a pulse of laser light and conducting chemical analyses of the reflected materials. Los Alamos, which has also provided financial support to develop the facility, intends to send its scientists, on a regular basis, to work with the UCLA researchers.
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UCLA and Los Alamos are also working closely to employ new high-throughput automated laboratory resources—so-called "batch" science accessible via the Internet—to accelerate the pace of research in infectious diseases and, potentially, in many other fields that would benefit from this approach. Identifying and developing therapies for infectious diseases requires massive laboratory efforts—efforts that could be dramatically accelerated with the type of automation Los Alamos has already developed in the environmental arena. "Many important scientific and medical research efforts currently are limited by sheer computer power," explains UCLA School of Public Health epidemiologist Scott Layne, who's teamed in the project with Los Alamos' Tony Beugelsdijk. "There's no other place in the world that does laboratory automation the way Los Alamos does it." While the Los Alamos group has the technical know-how, Layne's UCLA group focuses on applications—a frequent arrangement in the university/national labs relationship. "There's a certain synergy that works to our mutual benefit," concurs UCLA Physics and Astronomy Professor John Dawson, whose relationships with the labs date back nearly 20 years and whose current project involves honing Livermore's computational models for supernova explosions. "Livermore has a very large computational resource and expertise in the supernova problem. On the other hand, we work at a more fundamental physics level, looking at some basic processes scientists at the lab hadn't considered."
In addition to providing faculty incomparable platforms upon which to carry out their research, the labs offer a unique opportunity for graduate students to use extraordinary resources, with guidance from top-notch scientists. Over the last two decades, campuses have experienced an erosion in research-related infrastructure. A national lab can not only provide experience students couldn't otherwise gain, but it can also cover the students' salaries, extending the universities' resources. "Graduate students from top universities can infuse a national lab with new ideas," says Professor and Vice Chair of UCLA's Department of Mathematics Tony Chan, part of a group of applied mathematicians who work with physicists on Livermore's advanced computing resources and one of many UCLA faculty members who have received grant support for their students to conduct research at the labs. "It helps our students broaden their perspective, but it also helps them get jobs. "In the end, students are the life and the future of the field," says the Berkeley Lab's Barletta. "It's an obvious benefit to us to participate in their training, especially in areas where we think we're developing science for the future." Barletta believes the labs will increasingly seek to draw on university expertise, but at the same time, he hopes UC campuses will take more advantage of the labs' expertise in developing technology—like the small accelerator Barletta is helping to construct at UCLA. Notes Barletta: "We can help the university succeed in buildin things on a scale that you wouldn't traditionally see." |
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oday, the benefits that a major research university accrues from associating with these labs are substantial, says UCLA's Vice Chancellor for Research C. Kumar Patel. "The national laboratories generally have a specific mission, and within that mission they're able to attract very high-quality scientists, as well as very large instrumentation projects," Patel explains. "By maintaining close connections with these laboratories, our faculty and students can take advantage of their expertise and resources." 
imilarly, Michael Stenstrom, a civil and environmental engineering professor who heads UCLA's Institute of the Environment and is an expert on the biological treatment of compounds, has teamed with scientists at Livermore on the treatment of hazardous wastewater during weapons disassembly. He's also joined Los Alamos scientists in modeling the impact and response to a catastrophic release of hazardous waste in an urban environment. Other Institute of the Environment faculty members, including atmospheric scientist Richard Turco, are capitalizing on Los Alamos' advanced computing facilities, some of the world's most powerful, to develop a model for global warming.
