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42 U.S. Code § 18644. Biological and environmental research
(a) Program
As part of the duties of the Director authorized under section 7139 of this title, and coordinated with the activities authorized under sections 18641 and 18642 of this title, the Director shall carry out a program of research and development in the areas of biological systems science and climate and environmental science, including subsurface science, relevant to the development of new energy technologies and to support the energy, environmental, and national security missions of the Department.
(b) Biological systemsThe Director shall carry out research and development activities in genomic science including fundamental research on plants and microbes to increase systems-level understanding of the complex biological systems, which may include activities—
(1) to provide a fundamental understanding of the biology of plants, fungi, and microbes as a basis for developing innovative processes for bioenergy and bioproducts and accelerate breakthroughs and new knowledge that would enable the cost-effective, sustainable production of—
(A)
advanced biofuels;
(B)
bioenergy; and
(C)
biobased materials;
(2) to conduct foundational functional systems biology research—
(A)
to support expanded biosystems design research; and
(B) to understand—
(i)
fundamental genome structure; and
(ii)
phenomes, including functional genomics of gene products at genome scale;
(3)
to develop biosystems designs and synthetic biology approaches for new nonfood plant-derived and microbially derived bioproducts as a basis for new bioeconomy and biotechnology applications in bioproducts production, resource recovery, recycling, and upcycling ventures;
(4)
to better understand the behavior of microbiomes in the environment and the interdependencies between plants and microbes in a sustainable ecosystem;
(5)
to improve fundamental understanding of plant and microbial processes impacting the global carbon cycle, including processes for removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, through photosynthesis and other biological processes, for sequestration, storage, and utilization;
(6)
to understand the microbiome mechanisms and microbiota used to transform, immobilize, or remove contaminants from subsurface environments and that affect the cycling and disposition of carbon, nutrients, and contaminants in the environment;
(7)
to develop the computational approaches and integrated platforms for open access collaborative science;
(8) to leverage tools and approaches across the Office of Science to expand research to include novel processes, methods, and science to develop bio-based chemicals, polymers, inorganic materials, including research—
(A)
to advance fungal, microbial, and plant biosystems design research to advance the understanding of how CRISPR tools and other gene editing tools and technologies work in nature, in the laboratory, and in practice;
(B) to deepen genome-enabled knowledge of the roles of microbes and microbial communities, including fungi, in—
(i)
supporting plant and tree growth, productivity, performance, adaptation, and resilience in changing environmental conditions; and
(ii)
optimizing end uses of biomass;
(C)
to develop biosystems design methods and tools to increase the efficiency of photosynthesis in plants; and
(D)
to increase the scale and pace of characterizing the functions and physical characteristics of microbes and microbial communities to improve biosystems design;
(9)
to conduct research focused on developing analysis techniques and simulation capabilities, including artificial intelligence and machine learning, on high-performance computing platforms to accelerate collaborative and reproducible systems biology research;
(10)
to develop and improve new technologies for bioimaging, measurement, and characterization purposes to understand the structural, spatial, and temporal relationships of metabolic processes governing phenotypic expression in plants and microbes;
(11)
to conduct research focused on genotype-to-phenotype translations to develop a predictive understanding of cellular function under a variety of relevant environmental and bioenergy-related conditions;
(12)
to conduct metagenomic and metadata assembly research sequencing and analysis; and
(13)
to develop other relevant methods and processes as determined by the Director.