Study reveals insights into tacking diabetic kidney disease - with a side order of how anti-obesity drugs work

How a new drug for diabetes gives clues to how anti-obesity drugs work

Peer-Reviewed Publication

MONASH UNIVERSITY

Data from Australian researchers could partly explain why a trial of a new drug for diabetes, was recently halted because it was found to be so effective. Importantly, the data also reveals how anti-obesity drugs like Ozempic, actually work, which to date have been a mystery.

In early November the FLOW trial of the drug semaglutide on the progression of renal impairment in people with type 2 diabetes and chronic kidney disease was halted ahead of schedule because of the drug’s efficacy.

Part of the rationale for the cessation of the trial could be explained by research led by Monash University’s Associate Professor Melinda Coughlan, and published today in the journal, Kidney International, showing that a drug that targets a particular hormone GLP1, also interacts with a receptor called RAGE, to control the kidney damage that is the hallmark of Type 2 diabetes.

The discovery of the importance of RAGE opens up new therapeutic drug targets for the prevention of kidney disease in people with diabetes. Diabetic kidney disease (DKD) occurs in up to 40% of individuals with diabetes. According to Associate Professor Coughlan, the outlook for DKD has improved over recent decades as a result of improved blood glucose control and blood pressure management through new therapies, “however, a significant proportion of individuals with diabetes will still progress to end stage kidney disease or die prematurely from a cardiovascular event,” she said.

“Our study opens up a way to potentially prevent kidney disease in those people who are, so far, treatment resistant.”

According to another co-author of the study, Professor Mark Cooper, also from Monash University’s Central Clinical School, the discovery of how the RAGE receptor works in diabetes, could also explain how the obesity drug, Ozempic, and similar drugs targeting obesity, work. “To date we know these drugs, which were developed to tackle diabetes, help with weight loss, however their mode of action has not been understood, particularly in reducing diabetic complications including kidney disease” he said.

“We know that the RAGE receptor promotes kidney injury but by blocking interactions between drugs such as Ozempic and this RAGE receptor we now have new information to expand and develop new drugs to protect the kidney.

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JOURNAL

Kidney International

DOI

10.1016/j.kint.2023.09.029 

ARTICLE TITLE

Glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor signaling modifies the extent of diabetic kidney disease through dampening the receptor for advanced glycation end products -induced inflammation

New cause of diabetes discovered, offering potential target for new classes of drugs to treat the disease

Peer-Reviewed Publication

CASE WESTERN RESERVE UNIVERSITY

 

IMAGE: 

JONATHAN STAMLER 

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CREDIT: CASE WESTERN RESERVE UNIVERSITY

 

Dec. 8, 2023

CLEVELAND—Researchers at Case Western Reserve University and University Hospitals have identified an enzyme that blocks insulin produced in the body—a discovery that could provide a new target to treat diabetes.

Their study, published Dec. 5 in the journal Cell, focuses on nitric oxide, a compound that dilates blood vessels, improves memory, fights infection and stimulates the release of hormones, among other functions. How nitric oxide performs these activities had long been a mystery.

The researchers discovered a novel “carrier” enzyme (called SNO-CoA-assisted nitrosylase, or SCAN) that attaches nitric oxide to proteins, including the receptor for insulin action.

They found that the SCAN enzyme was essential for normal insulin action, but also discovered heightened SCAN activity in diabetic patients and mice with diabetes. Mouse models without the SCAN enzyme appeared to be shielded from diabetes, suggesting that too much nitric oxide on proteins may be a cause of such diseases.

“We show that blocking this enzyme protects from diabetes, but the implications extend to many diseases likely caused by novel enzymes that add nitric oxide,” said the study’s lead researcher Jonathan Stamler, the Robert S. and Sylvia K. Reitman Family Foundation Distinguished Professor of Cardiovascular Innovation at the Case Western Reserve School of Medicine and president of Harrington Discovery Institute at University Hospitals. “Blocking this enzyme may offer a new treatment.”

Given the discovery, next steps could be to develop medications against the enzyme, he said.

The research team included Hualin Zhou and Richard Premont, both from Case Western Reserve School of Medicine and University Hospitals, and students Zack Grimmett and Nicholas Venetos from the university’s Medical Science Training Program.

Many human diseases, including Alzheimer’s, cancer, heart failure and diabetes, are thought to be caused or accelerated by nitric oxide binding excessively to key proteins. With this discovery, Stamler said, enzymes that attach the nitric oxide become a focus.

With diabetes, the body often stops responding normally to insulin. The resulting increased blood sugar stays in the bloodstream and, over time, can cause serious health problems. Individuals with diabetes, the Centers for Disease Control reports, are more likely to suffer such conditions as heart disease, vision loss and kidney disease.

But the reason that insulin stops working isn’t well understood.

Excessive nitric oxide has been implicated in many diseases, but the ability to treat has been limited because the molecule is reactive and can’t be targeted specifically, Stamler said.

“This paper shows that dedicated enzymes mediate the many effects of nitric oxide,” he said. “Here, we discover an enzyme that puts nitric oxide on the insulin receptor to control insulin. Too much enzyme activity causes diabetes. But a case is made for many enzymes putting nitric oxide on many proteins, and, thus, new treatments for many diseases.”

                                                            ###

Case Western Reserve University is one of the country's leading private research institutions. Located in Cleveland, we offer a unique combination of forward-thinking educational opportunities in an inspiring cultural setting. Our leading-edge faculty engage in teaching and research in a collaborative, hands-on environment. Our nationally recognized programs include arts and sciences, dental medicine, engineering, law, management, medicine, nursing and social work. About 6,200 undergraduate and 6,100 graduate students comprise our student body. Visit case.edu to see how Case Western Reserve thinks beyond the possible.

About University Hospitals / Cleveland, Ohio
Founded in 1866, University Hospitals serves the needs of patients through an integrated network of 21 hospitals (including five joint ventures), more than 50 health centers and outpatient facilities, and over 200 physician offices in 16 counties throughout northern Ohio. The system’s flagship quaternary care, academic medical center, University Hospitals Cleveland Medical Center, is affiliated with Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, Northeast Ohio Medical University, Oxford University, the Technion Israel Institute of Technology and National Taiwan University College of Medicine. The main campus also includes the UH Rainbow Babies & Children's Hospital, ranked among the top children’s hospitals in the nation; UH MacDonald Women's Hospital, Ohio's only hospital for women; and UH Seidman Cancer Center, part of the NCI-designated Case Comprehensive Cancer Center. UH is home to some of the most prestigious clinical and research programs in the nation, with more than 3,000 active clinical trials and research studies underway. UH Cleveland Medical Center is perennially among the highest performers in national ranking surveys, including “America’s Best Hospitals” from U.S. News & World Report. UH is also home to 19 Clinical Care Delivery and Research Institutes. UH is one of the largest employers in Northeast Ohio with more than 30,000 employees. Follow UH on LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter. For more information, visit UHhospitals.org.

 

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JOURNAL

Cell

DOI

10.1016/j.cell.2023.11.009 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Experimental study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Animals

ARTICLE TITLE

An enzyme that selectively S-nitrosylates proteins to regulate insulin signaling

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

5-Dec-2023

 

When is an aurora not an aurora?

Phenomena called “Steve” and “picket fence” are masquerading as auroras, graduate student argues

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA - BERKELEY

 

IMAGE: 

A NORMAL AURORA (LEFT) CONSISTS OF GLOWING CURTAINS OF RED, GREEN AND BLUE. AN ENHANCED AURORA (RIGHT) CONTAINS A THIN, BRIGHTER LAYER WHICH EXHIBITS MUCH MORE GREEN, POSSIBLY CAUSED BY THE SAME PHYSICAL PROCESS THAT CREATES STEVE AND THE PICKET FENCE. BECAUSE ENHANCED AURORAS ARE MORE COMMON, UC BERKELEY RESEARCHERS PLAN TO PROBE THEM FIRST TO DETERMINE WHAT CONDITIONS IN THE UPPER ATMOSPHERE CAUSE THE PHENOMENA.

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CREDIT: VINCENT LEDVINA, THEAURORAGUY.COM

The shimmering green, red and purple curtains of the northern and southern lights — the auroras — may be the best-known phenomena lighting up the nighttime sky, but the most mysterious are the mauve and white streaks called Steve and their frequent companion, a glowing green "picket fence."

First recognized in 2018 as distinct from the common auroras, Steve — a tongue-in-cheek reference to the benign name given a scary hedge in a 2006 children's movie — and its associated picket fence were nevertheless thought to be caused by the same physical processes. But scientists were left scratching their heads about how these glowing emissions were produced.

Claire Gasque, a University of California, Berkeley, graduate student in physics, has now proposed a physical explanation for these phenomena that is totally different from the processes responsible for the well-known auroras. She has teamed up with researchers at the campus's Space Sciences Laboratory (SSL) to propose that NASA launch a rocket into the heart of the aurora to find out if she's correct.

Vibrant auroras and glowing phenomena such as Steve and the picket fence are becoming more common as the sun enters the active period of its 11-year cycle, and November was a good month for Steve observations in the northern latitudes. Because all these transient luminous phenomena are triggered by solar storms and coronal mass ejections from the sun, the approaching solar maximum is an ideal time to study rare events like Steve and the picket fence.

Gasque described the physics behind the picket fence in a paper published last month in the journal Geophysical Research Letters and will discuss the results on Dec. 14 in an invited talk at the American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco.

She calculated that in a region of the upper atmosphere farther south than that in which auroras form, electric fields parallel to Earth's magnetic field could produce the color spectrum of the picket fence. If correct, this unusual process has implications for how physicists understand energy flow between Earth's magnetosphere, which surrounds and protects Earth from the solar wind, and the ionosphere at the edge of space.

"This would upend our modeling of what creates light and the energy in the aurora in some cases," Gasque said.

"The really interesting thing about Claire's paper is that we've known for a couple of years now that the Steve spectrum is telling us there's some very exotic physics going on. We just didn't know what it was," said Brian Harding, a co-author of the paper and an SSL assistant research physicist. "Claire's paper showed that parallel electric fields are capable of explaining this exotic spectrum."

The paper was a side project from Gasque's Ph.D. thesis, which is focused on the connection between events like volcanoes on Earth's surface and phenomena in the ionosphere 100 kilometers or more above our heads.

But after hearing about Steve — which has now become an acronym for Strong Thermal Emission Velocity Enhancement — at a conference in 2022, she couldn't resist looking into the physics behind Steve and the picket fence.

"It's really cool," she said. "It's one of the biggest mysteries in space physics right now."

The physics of Steve and picket fence

The common auroras are produced when the solar wind energizes particles in Earth's magnetosphere, often at altitudes higher than 1,000 kilometers above the surface. These energized particles spiral around Earth's magnetic field lines toward the poles, where they crash into and excite oxygen and nitrogen molecules in the upper atmosphere. When those molecules relax, oxygen emits specific frequencies of green and red light, while nitrogen generates a bit of red, but primarily a blue, emission line.

The colorful, shimmering curtains that result can extend for thousands of kilometers across the northern or southern latitudes.

Steve, however, displays not individual emission lines, but a broad range of frequencies centered around purple or mauve. And unlike auroras, neither Steve nor the picket fence emit blue light, which is generated when the most energetic particles hit and ionize nitrogen. Steve and the picket fence also occur at lower latitudes than the aurora, potentially even as far south as the equator.

Some researchers proposed that Steve is caused by ion flows in the upper atmosphere, referred to as subauroral ion drift, or SAID, though there's no well accepted physical explanation for how SAID could generate the colorful emissions.

Gasque's interest was sparked by suggestions that the picket fence's emissions could be generated by low-altitude electric fields parallel to Earth's magnetic field, a situation thought to be impossible because any electric field aligned with the magnetic field should quickly short out and disappear.

Using a common physical model of the ionosphere, Gasque subsequently showed that a moderate parallel electric field — around 100 millivolts per meter — at a height of about 110 km could accelerate electrons to an energy that would excite oxygen and nitrogen and generate the spectrum of light observed from the picket fence. Unusual conditions in that area, such as a lower density of charged plasma and more neutral atoms of oxygen and nitrogen, could potentially act as insulation to keep the electric field from shorting out.

"If you look at the spectrum of the picket fence, it's much more green than you would expect. And there's none of the blue that's coming from the ionization of nitrogen," Gasque said. "What that's telling us is that there's only a specific energy range of electrons that can create those colors, and they can't be coming from way out in space down into the atmosphere, because those particles have too much energy."

Instead, she said, "the light from the picket fence is being created by particles that have to be energized right there in space by a parallel electric field, which is a completely different mechanism than any of the aurora that we've studied or known before."

She and Harding suspect that Steve itself may be produced by related processes. Their calculations also predict the type of ultraviolet emissions that this process would produce, which can be checked to verify the new hypothesis about the picket fence.

Though Gasque's calculations don't directly address the on-off glow that makes the phenomenon look like a picket fence, it's likely due to wavelike variations in the electric field, she said. And while the particles that are accelerated by the electric field are probably not from the sun, the scrambling of the atmosphere by solar storms probably triggers Steve and the picket fence, as it does the common aurora.

Enhanced auroras exhibit a picket fence-like glow

The next step, Harding said, is to launch a rocket from Alaska through these phenomena and measure the strength and direction of the electric and magnetic fields. SSL scientists specialize in designing and building instruments that do just that. Many of these instruments are on spacecraft now orbiting Earth and the sun.

Initially, the target would be what's known as an enhanced aurora, which is a normal aurora with picket fence-like emissions embedded in it.

"The enhanced aurora is basically this bright layer that's embedded in the normal aurora. The colors are similar to the picket fence in that there's not as much blue in them, and there's more green from oxygen and red from nitrogen. The hypothesis is that these are also created by parallel electric fields, but they are a lot more common than the picket fence," Gasque said.

The plan is not only "to fly a rocket through that enhanced layer to actually measure those parallel electric fields for the first time," she said, but also send a second rocket up to measure the particles at higher altitudes, "to distinguish the conditions from those that cause the auroras." Eventually, she hopes for a rocket that will fly directly through Steve and the picket fence.

Harding, Gasque and colleagues proposed just such a sounding rocket campaign to NASA this fall and expect to hear back regarding its selection in the first half of 2024. Gasque and Harding consider the experiment an important step in understanding the chemistry and physics of the upper atmosphere, the ionosphere and Earth’s magnetosphere, and a proposal in line with the Low Cost Access to Space (LCAS) program sponsored by NASA for projects like this.

"It's fair to say that there's going to be a lot of study in the future about how those electric fields got there, what waves they are or aren't associated with, and what that means for the larger energy transfer between Earth's atmosphere and space," Harding said. "We really don't know. Claire's paper is the first step in the chain of that understanding."

Gasque expressed appreciation for the input from people who study the middle ionosphere, or mesosphere, and the stratosphere, whose ideas helped her puzzle out the solution.

"With this collaboration, we were able to make some really cool progress in this field," she said. "Honestly, it was just following our nose and being excited about it."

In addition to Harding, her other co-authors are Reza Janalizadeh of Pennsylvania State University in University Park, Justin Yonker of the Applied Physics Laboratory at Johns Hopkins University in Laurel, Maryland, and D. Megan Gillies of the University of Calgary in Alberta, Canada.

Partial support for this work was provided by the National Science Foundation (AGS-2010088), National Aeronautics and Space Administration (80NSSC21K1386) and Robert P. Lin Fellowship at UC Berkeley.

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JOURNAL

Geophysical Research Letters

DOI

10.1029/2023GL106073 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Computational simulation/modeling

ARTICLE TITLE

It's Not Easy Being Green: Kinetic Modeling of the Emission Spectrum Observed in STEVE's Picket Fence

 

First hints of nuclear fission in cosmos revealed by models, observations

Fission models find clear fingerprints of nuclear process never before directly observed in stars

Peer-Reviewed Publication

DOE/LOS ALAMOS NATIONAL LABORATORY

 

IMAGE: 

THE MERGER OF TWO NEUTRON STARS IS AMONG THE LEADING CANDIDATE SITES FOR SYNTHESIZING THE HEAVIER ELEMENTS ON THE PERIODIC TABLE THROUGH THE RAPID-NEUTRON-CAPTURE PROCESS. THE IMAGE SHOWS TWO NEUTRON STARS COLLIDING TO RELEASING NEUTRONS THAT RADIOACTIVE NUCLEI RAPIDLY CAPTURE. THE COMBINATION OF NEUTRON CAPTURE AND RADIOACTIVE DECAY PRODUCES SUBSEQUENTLY HEAVIER ELEMENTS. THE ENTIRE PROCESS IS BELIEVED TO HAPPEN IN A SINGLE SECOND.

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CREDIT: CREDIT: LOS ALAMOS NATIONAL LABORATORY (MATTHEW MUMPOWER)

LOS ALAMOS, N.M., Dec. 7, 2023 — The elements above iron on the periodic table are thought to be created in cataclysmic explosions like the merger of two neutron stars or in rare classes of supernovae. New research suggests fission may operate in the cosmos during the creation of the heavy elements. Combing through data on a variety of elements that reside in very old stars, researchers have found a potential signature of fission, indicating that nature is likely to produce superheavy nuclei beyond the heaviest elements on the periodic table.

“People have thought fission was happening in the cosmos, but to date, no one has been able to prove it,” said Matthew Mumpower, a theoretical physicist at Los Alamos National Laboratory and co-author of a paper in Science presenting the research.

Using the latest observations, Mumpower said, the researchers found a correlation between light precision metals like silver and rare earth nuclei like europium. When one of these groups of elements goes up, the corresponding elements in the other group also increase — the correlation is positive.

‘Incredibly profound” evidence of fission

“The only plausible way this can arise among different stars is if there is a consistent process operating during the formation of the heavy elements,” Mumpower said. The team tested all the possibilities and fission was the only explanation that was able to reproduce the trend.

“This is incredibly profound and is the first evidence of fission operating in the cosmos, confirming a theory we proposed several years ago,” Mumpower said. “As we’ve acquired more observations, the cosmos is saying hey, there’s a signature here, and it can only come from fission.”

The research also indicates that elements with an atomic mass (the number of protons plus neutrons) of 260 — heavier than those charted at the high end of the periodic table — may exist.

Mumpower developed the fission models used to predict and guide the observational findings, which were led by study author Ian Roederer of North Carolina State University.

Heavy research

Astrophysicists have long believed heavy elements beyond iron were formed in stellar explosions called supernova or when two neutron stars merged. As the name implies, the latter are composed largely of neutrons, which together with protons form the nuclei of all atoms. Through the rapid-neutron capture process, dubbed the r-process, atomic nuclei grab neutrons to form heavier elements. Whether some grow too heavy to hold together and split, or fission, forming two atoms of lighter but still heavy elements (and releasing tremendous energy) has remained a mystery for a half century. 

In a 2020 paper, Mumpower first predicted the distributions of fission fragments for r-process nuclei. A subsequent study led by collaborator Nicole Vassh at TRIUMF predicted the co-production of light precision metals and rare earth nuclei. This co-production of elements like elements ruthenium, rhodium, palladium and silver, and those like europium, gadolinium, dysprosium and holmium, can be tested by comparing the prediction with elemental abundances in a collection of stars.

The new analysis led by Roederer combed through observational data from 42 stars and found precisely the predicted correlation. The pattern provides a clear signature of fission creating these elements and a similar pattern of elements slightly heavier and higher on the periodic table.

“The correlation is very robust in r-process enhanced stars where we have sufficient data. Every time nature produces an atom of silver, it’s also producing heavier rare earth nuclei in proportion. The composition of these element groups are in lock step,” Mumpower said. “We have shown that only one mechanism can be responsible — fission — and people have been racking brains about this since the 1950s.”

From stockpile stewardship to the stars

“At Los Alamos, we developed nuclear fission models because we can’t measure everything that’s relevant for weapons research as part of the Laboratory’s mission,” Mumpower said. The models allow physicists to interpret experiments and fill in data when measurements are lacking. Since the United States halted testing of nuclear weapons in 1992, experimental data on fission has been limited.

The models perform exceptionally well when compared to measured data and thus give credence to their extrapolations where there are no measurements. The nuclear inputs of both short-lived and long-lived species are required for studies of heavy element formation, Mumpower said. Fission yields are products of the process of splitting relatively heavy atoms into lighter ones — the same process used in nuclear weapons and reactors.

 

The paper: “Element abundance patterns in stars indicate fission of nuclei heavier than uranium.” Science. DOI:  10.1126/science.adf1341

  

The funding: Laboratory Directed Research and Development program at Los Alamos National Laboratory.

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LA-UR-23-33647

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JOURNAL

Science

DOI

10.1126/science.adf1341 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Observational study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

Element abundance patterns in stars indicate fission of nuclei heavier than uranium

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

8-Dec-2023

 

Advisory panel issues field-defining recommendations for investments in particle physics research

Argonne is set to contribute to the realization of the recommendations, which will shape the next decade of discovery in particle physics

Reports and Proceedings

DOE/ARGONNE NATIONAL LABORATORY

Contributions from Argonne will drive innovation in particle physics and shed light on outstanding mysteries in the field.

Yesterday marked the release of a highly anticipated report from the Particle Physics Project Prioritization Panel (P5), unveiling an exciting new roadmap for unlocking the secrets of the cosmos through particle physics.

The report was released by the High Energy Physics Advisory Panel to the High Energy Physics program of the Office of Science of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and the National Science Foundation’s Division of Physics. It outlines particle physicists’ recommendations for research priorities in a field whose projects — such as building new accelerator facilities — can take years or decades, contributions from thousands of scientists and billions of dollars

The 2023 P5 report represents the major activity in the field of particle physics that delivers recommendations to U.S. funding agencies. This year’s report builds on the output of the 2021 Snowmass planning exercise — a process organized by the American Physical Society’s (APS) Division of Particles and Fields that convened particle physicists and cosmologists from around the world to outline research priorities. This membership division constitutes the only independent body in the U.S. that represents particle physics as a whole.

“With our state-of-the-art facilities and community of dedicated scientists, Argonne’s contributions are shaping the global trajectory of high-energy physics.” — Rik Yoshida, Argonne High Energy Physics Division Director

“The P5 report will lay the foundation for a very bright future in the field,” said R. Sekhar Chivukula, 2023 chair of the APS Division of Particles and Fields and a distinguished professor of physics at the University of California, San Diego. ​“There are extraordinarily important scientific questions remaining in particle physics, which the U.S. particle physics community has both the capability and opportunity to help address, within our own facilities and as a member of the global high energy physics community.”

The report includes a range of budget-conscious recommendations for federal investments in research programs, the U.S. technical workforce and the technology and infrastructure needed to realize the next generation of transformative discoveries related to fundamental physics and the origin of the universe. For example, the report recommends continued support for the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE), based out of DOE’s Fermilab in Illinois, for CMB-S4, a network of ground-based telescopes designed to observe the cosmic microwave background (CMB), and for the planned expansion of the South Pole’s neutrino observatory, an international collaboration known as IceCube-Gen2, in a facility operated by the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

Researchers at DOE’s Argonne National Laboratory stand at the forefront of high energy physics and are poised to contribute significantly to the advancement of the field over the next decade. They are exploring the fundamental nature of the universe and pioneering innovative technologies with far-reaching implications. In particular, Argonne’s High Energy Physics (HEP) division leverages the laboratory’s suite of multidisciplinary facilities and equipment — including world-class scientific computing capabilities — to further scientific discovery and advance accelerator technology. For example, Argonne’s contributions to key high energy physics collaborations include the design and fabrication of components for DUNE, the development of cutting-edge detectors for CMB-S4 and more.

“With our state-of-the-art facilities and community of dedicated scientists, Argonne’s contributions are helping to shape the global trajectory of high-energy physics,” said Rik Yoshida, director of Argonne’s HEP division. ​“This report reflects the collective wisdom of the high energy physics community, and we look forward to leveraging our expertise and capabilities here at Argonne to help uncover the mysteries of the universe, drive innovation, inspire future generations of scientists and bolster our nation’s vital role in the future of particle physics.”

“In the P5 exercise, it’s really important that we take this broad look at where the field of particle physics is headed, to deliver a report that amounts to a strategic plan for the U.S. community with a 10-year budgetary timeline and a 20-year context. The panel thought about where the next big discoveries might lie and how we could maximize impact within budget, to support future discoveries and the next generation of researchers and technical workers who will be needed to achieve them,” said Karsten Heeger, P5 panel deputy chair and Eugene Higgins Professor and chair of physics at Yale University.

New knowledge, and new technologies, set the stage for the most recent Snowmass and P5 convenings. ​“The Higgs boson had just been discovered before the previous P5 process, and now our continued study of the particle has greatly informed what we think may lie beyond the standard model of particle physics,” said Hitoshi Murayama, P5 panel chair and the MacAdams Professor of physics at the University of California, Berkeley. ​“Our thinking about what dark matter might be has also changed, forcing the community to look elsewhere — to the cosmos. And in 2015, the discovery of gravitational waves was reported. Accelerator technology is changing too, which has shifted the discussion to the technology R&D needed to build the next-generation particle collider.”

The U.S. participates in several major international scientific collaborations in high energy physics and cosmology, including the European Council for Nuclear Research (CERN), which operates the Large Hadron Collider, where the Higgs boson was discovered in 2012. The P5 report recommends that the U.S. support a significant in-kind contribution to a new international facility, the ​“Higgs factory,” to further our understanding of the

Advisory panel issues field-defining recommendations for US government investments in particle physics research

Activities of the Particle Physics Project Prioritization Panel are supported in part by the American Physical Society’s Division of Particles and Fields

Reports and Proceedings

AMERICAN PHYSICAL SOCIETY

The High Energy Physics Advisory Panel (HEPAP) to the High Energy Physics program of the Office of Science of the U.S. Department of Energy and the National Science Foundation’s Division of Physics has released a new Particle Physics Project Prioritization Panel (P5) report, which outlines particle physicists’ recommendations for research priorities in a field whose projects — such as building new accelerator facilities — can take years or decades, contributions from thousands of scientists, and billions of dollars. 

The 2023 P5 report represents the major activity in the field of particle physics that delivers recommendations to U.S. funding agencies. This year’s report builds on the output of the 2021 Snowmass planning exercise — a process organized by the American Physical Society (APS)’s Division of Particles and Fields that convened particle physicists and cosmologists from around the world to outline research priorities. This membership division constitutes the only independent body in the United States that represents particle physics as a whole.

“The P5 report will lay the foundation for a very bright future in the field,” said R. Sekhar Chivukula, 2023 chair of the APS Division of Particles and Fields and a Distinguished Professor of Physics at the University of California, San Diego. “There are extraordinarily important scientific questions remaining in particle physics, which the U.S. particle physics community has both the capability and opportunity to help address, within our own facilities and as a member of the global high energy physics community.”

The report includes a range of budget-conscious recommendations for federal investments in research programs, the U.S. technical workforce, and the technology and infrastructure needed to realize the next generation of transformative discoveries related to fundamental physics and the origin of the universe. For example, the report recommends continued support for the 

Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE), based out of Fermilab in Illinois, for CMB-S4, a network of ground-based telescopes designed to observe the cosmic microwave background, and for the planned expansion of the South Pole’s neutrino observatory, an international collaboration known as IceCube-Gen2, in a facility operated by the University of Wisconsin–Madison. 

“In the P5 exercise, it’s really important that we take this broad look at where the field of particle physics is headed, to deliver a report that amounts to a strategic plan for the U.S. community with a 10-year budgetary timeline and a 20-year context. The panel thought about where the next big discoveries might lie and how we could maximize impact within budget, to support future discoveries and the next generation of researchers and technical workers who will be needed to achieve them,” said Karsten Heeger, P5 panel deputy chair and Eugene Higgins Professor and chair of physics at Yale University.

New knowledge, and new technologies, set the stage for the most recent Snowmass and P5 convenings. “The Higgs boson had just been discovered before the previous P5 process, and now our continued study of the particle has greatly informed what we think may lie beyond the standard model of particle physics,” said Hitoshi Murayama, P5 panel chair and the MacAdams Professor of physics at the University of California, Berkeley. “Our thinking about what dark matter might be has also changed, forcing the community to look elsewhere — to the cosmos. And in 2015, the discovery of gravitational waves was reported. Accelerator technology is changing too, which has shifted the discussion to the technology R&D needed to build the next-generation particle collider.”  

The United States participates in several major international scientific collaborations in high energy physics and cosmology, including the European Council for Nuclear Research (CERN), which operates the Large Hadron Collider, where the Higgs boson was discovered in 2012. The P5 report recommends that the United States support a significant in-kind contribution to a new international facility, the ‘Higgs factory,’ to further our understanding of the Higgs boson. It also recommends that the United States study the possibility of hosting the next most-advanced particle collider facility, to reinforce the country’s leading role in international high energy physics for decades to come.

# # #

The American Physical Society is a nonprofit membership organization working to advance and diffuse the knowledge of physics through its outstanding research journals, scientific meetings, and education, outreach, advocacy, and international activities. APS represents more than 50,000 members, including physicists in academia, national laboratories, and industry in the United States and throughout the world.

BNL: Advisory panel issues field-defining recommendations for U.S. government investments in particle physics research

Reports and Proceedings

DOE/BROOKHAVEN NATIONAL LABORATORY

The following news release on the 2023 Particle Physics Project Prioritization Panel (P5) report is based on one issued today by the American Physical Society (APS) with added content specific to the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory. For more information about Brookhaven Lab’s research in particle physics, contact: Karen McNulty Walsh, kmcnulty@bnl.gov, (631) 344-8350. For APS media inquiries, contact Anna Torres, torres@aps.org, (301) 209-3605.

WASHINGTON, D.C.—The High Energy Physics Advisory Panel (HEPAP) to the High Energy Physics program of the Office of Science of the U.S. Department of Energy and the National Science Foundation’s Division of Physics has released a new Particle Physics Project Prioritization Panel (P5) report, which outlines particle physicists’ recommendations for research priorities in the field. The 2023 P5 report was posted online yesterday and was voted on and accepted by HEPAP today.

The 2023 P5 report represents the major activity in the field of particle physics that delivers recommendations to U.S. funding agencies. This year’s report builds on the output of the 2021 Snowmass planning exercise—a process organized by the American Physical Society (APS)’s Division of Particles and Fields that convened particle physicists and cosmologists from around the world to outline research priorities. This membership division constitutes the only independent body in the United States that represents particle physics as a whole.

“The P5 report will lay the foundation for a very bright future in the field,” said R. Sekhar Chivukula, 2023 chair of the APS Division of Particles and Fields and a Distinguished Professor of Physics at the University of California, San Diego. “There are extraordinarily important scientific questions remaining in particle physics, which the U.S. particle physics community has both the capability and opportunity to help address, within our own facilities and as a member of the global high energy physics community.”

“We welcome the P5 report recommendations, which define a strong and balanced U.S. particle physics program based on input from the Snowmass community-wide process,” said Brookhaven National Laboratory Director JoAnne Hewett. “Building on our decades of expertise in high energy physics and facility design and operation, we are eager to actively engage and lead in developing, constructing, and operating the next generation of facilities and experiments to explore the Quantum Universe.”

The report includes a range of budget-conscious recommendations for federal investments in research programs, the U.S. technical workforce, and the technology and infrastructure needed to realize the next generation of transformative discoveries related to fundamental physics and the origin of the universe. For example, the report recommends continued support for the high-luminosity upgrades at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), based in Europe, for the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE), based out of Fermilab in Illinois, for CMB-S4, a network of ground-based telescopes designed to observe the cosmic microwave background, and for the planned expansion of the South Pole’s neutrino observatory, an international collaboration known as IceCube-Gen2, in a facility operated by the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

“In the P5 exercise, it’s really important that we take this broad look at where the field of particle physics is headed, to deliver a report that amounts to a strategic plan for the U.S. community with a 10-year budgetary timeline and a 20-year context. The panel thought about where the next big discoveries might lie and how we could maximize impact within budget, to support future discoveries and the next generation of researchers and technical workers who will be needed to achieve them,” said Karsten Heeger, P5 panel deputy chair and Eugene Higgins Professor and chair of physics at Yale University.

New knowledge, and new technologies, set the stage for the most recent Snowmass and P5 convenings. “The Higgs boson had just been discovered before the previous P5 process, and now our continued study of the particle has greatly informed what we think may lie beyond the standard model of particle physics,” said Hitoshi Murayama, P5 panel chair and the MacAdams Professor of physics at the University of California, Berkeley. “Our thinking about what dark matter might be has also changed, forcing the community to look elsewhere—to the cosmos. And in 2015, the discovery of gravitational waves was reported. Accelerator technology is changing too, which has shifted the discussion to the technology R&D needed to build the next-generation particle collider.”

The United States participates in several major international scientific collaborations in high energy physics and cosmology, including the European Council for Nuclear Research (CERN), which operates the Large Hadron Collider, where the Higgs boson was discovered in 2012. The P5 report recommends that the United States support a significant in-kind contribution to a new international facility, the ‘Higgs Factory,’ to further our understanding of the Higgs boson. It also recommends that the United States study the possibility of hosting the next most-advanced particle collider facility, to reinforce the country’s leading role in international high energy physics for decades to come.

DOE’s Brookhaven National Laboratory contributes to many of the projects highlighted in the P5 report, including these major efforts:

Brookhaven Lab serves as the U.S. host laboratory for the ATLAS experiment, one of four major detectors at the LHC. ATLAS has opened new frontiers of knowledge about elementary particles and their interactions, including the 2012 discovery of the Higgs boson. Brookhaven Lab scientists contributed to that groundbreaking discovery and subsequent studies of Higgs properties, as well as ATLAS project management and experiment operations. They also run a state-of-the-art computing center for storing and sharing ATLAS data with collaborators around the world. Brookhaven physicists, engineers, and technical staff also helped design and build the magnets that steer the LHC’s beams of protons and other ions into collisions—including magnets enabling drastically increased collision rates for future discoveries.

In addition, the Brookhaven team has proposed ideas for and is dedicated to working closely with international and U.S. partners to develop a Higgs factory and its associated detectors. This facility, as recommended in the P5 report, would create copious numbers of Higgs particles and allow detailed, precision studies of their properties—potentially opening the door to discovering discrepancies between theory and experiment that could reveal new physics. The P5 panel also recommends dedicated R&D to explore a suite of promising future projects, including colliders that can reach even higher energies than Higgs factories. Brookhaven scientists are actively engaged in the development of technologies for one such approach—a machine that could collide particles called muons, heavy cousins of electrons.

Brookhaven Lab is also playing a leading role in DUNE. This Fermilab-based experiment will send beams of elusive subatomic particles called neutrinos hundreds of miles through Earth’s crust to detectors deep underground in South Dakota. Understanding how neutrinos change as they travel may help unravel mysteries about how our universe evolved, including potentially an asymmetry between matter and antimatter that accounts for our universe being composed mostly of matter. Brookhaven physicists and staff helped develop the methods for creating neutrinos, simulations for testing and controlling characteristics of the beam, specialized electronics and other detector materials needed to study key neutrino characteristics, and the software and computational tools that will be used to capture neutrino signals and process vast quantities of data. Brookhaven scientists are leading the design of a third underground detector module for DUNE, highlighted in the P5 report as part of a re-envisioned second phase of this project.

Going beyond the secrets of the matter that makes up our world and its scantly present antimatter partner, Brookhaven scientists seek to explore the unknowns of so-called dark matter and dark energy, which are highlighted among the scientific drivers for new discoveries by the P5 panel and together make up more than 95% of our universe. One tool for this research is a telescope that will be housed at the Vera C. Rubin Observatory high on a mountaintop in Chile. The DOE-funded effort to build the camera for the telescope was managed by SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory. Brookhaven Lab led construction of the camera’s 3.2 gigapixel “digital film”—the biggest charge-coupled device (CCD) array ever built—and will support the telescope’s Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST). LSST will be an unparalleled wide-field astronomical survey of our universe—wider and deeper in volume than all previous surveys combined.

Brookhaven Lab is also actively engaged in developing small- and medium-scale facilities and experiments and in building capabilities in machine learning/artificial intelligence, quantum information science, and microelectronics that will help to push the frontiers of discovery in high energy physics with potential benefit for other fields. The Lab is also committed to attracting, building, and supporting a diverse workforce to carry out these ambitious research programs, and to fostering a climate of innovation.

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Activities of the Particle Physics Project Prioritization Panel are supported in part by
the American Physical Society’s Division of Particles and Fields

The American Physical Society is a nonprofit membership organization working to advance and diffuse the knowledge of physics through its outstanding research journals, scientific meetings, and education, outreach, advocacy, and international activities. APS represents more than 50,000 members, including physicists in academia, national laboratories, and industry in the United States and throughout the world.

Brookhaven National Laboratory is supported by the Office of Science of the U.S. Department of Energy. The Office of Science is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States and is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, visit science.energy.gov.

Follow @BrookhavenLab on social media. Find us on Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook. Higgs boson.

It also recommends that the U.S. study the possibility of hosting the next most-advanced particle collider facility to reinforce the country’s leading role in international high energy physics for decades to come.

Activities of the P5 are supported in part by the APS’s Division of Particles and Fields.

The American Physical Society is a nonprofit membership organization working to advance and diffuse the knowledge of physics through its outstanding research journals, scientific meetings, and education, outreach, advocacy, and international activities. APS represents more than 50,000 members, including physicists in academia, national laboratories, and industry in the United States and throughout the world.

Argonne National Laboratory seeks solutions to pressing national problems in science and technology. The nation’s first national laboratory, Argonne conducts leading-edge basic and applied scientific research in virtually every scientific discipline. Argonne researchers work closely with researchers from hundreds of companies, universities, and federal, state and municipal agencies to help them solve their specific problems, advance America’s scientific leadership and prepare the nation for a better future. With employees from more than 60 nations, Argonne is managed by UChicago Argonne, LLC for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science.

The U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States and is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, visit https://​ener​gy​.gov/​s​c​ience.

SCI-FI-TEK

Texas A&M Institute part of national effort to harness nuclear laser fusion for limitless energy

The Institute for Quantum Science and Engineering is a major player in advancing laser-driven fusion energy.

Grant and Award Announcement

TEXAS A&M UNIVERSITY

 

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TEXAS A&M’S CORE MEMBERS OF THE RISE HUB INCLUDE IQSE PHYSICISTS (L-R) ALEKSEI ZHELTIKOV, MARLAN SCULLY, ALEXEI SOKOLOV AND ZHENHUAN YI.

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CREDIT: ARASH AZIZI/INSTITUTE FOR QUANTUM SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING

Nuclear fusion, the process that powers the sun, is the ultimate source of energy for all life on Earth. On the sun, deuterium and tritium nuclei combine to produce an alpha particle (the nucleus of a helium atom) and a neutron. The dream is to do the same down here, on Earth, in a controlled manner.

It’s for good reason that harnessing fusion energy is one of the greatest scientific and technological challenges of the 21st century. Fusion requires the fuel to be heated to more than 100 million degrees (10 times hotter than the core of the sun). Practical fusion energy also requires that the burning fuel is kept at these hot temperatures long enough so that energy produced by fusion exceeds the energy required to initiate and sustain the fusion reactions.

One of the two most investigated and promising approaches, Inertial Fusion Energy (IFE), uses powerful lasers, which are fundamental tools in IFE research, to heat a small target containing fusible material. For the first time in history last winter, scientists at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s Ignition Facility achieved a critical milestone in the development of IFE by demonstrating a net target gain with the fusion energy output exceeding the laser energy input on the way to making commercial fusion a success.

On the heels of announcing a $45 million program for IFE fusion energy development in May, the U.S. Department of Energy today (Dec. 7) unveiled a $42 million program establishing three new hubs to advance foundational IFE science and technology. Texas A&M’s Institute for Quantum Science and Engineering (IQSE) is a major player in one of the multi-million-dollar hubs, known as RISE, which will be led by Colorado State University and dedicated to advancing laser-driven fusion energy.

“The RISE hub will become a center of excellence for IFE science and technology to support the DOE’s mission in IFE,” said Dr. Marlan Scully, a University Distinguished Professor and IQSE director.

The DOE investments in IFE science and technology will enable RISE hub researchers to build on the momentum of that 2022 Livermore Lab breakthrough. The RISE hub brings together leading institutions in the U.S. and innovative private fusion companies, along with their unique complementary skills, to synergistically work together to achieve scientific milestones in making fusion energy a commercial reality and to grow the much-needed diverse workforce in fusion.

Researchers from IQSE are joined by scientists and engineers from University of Illinois, Cornell University, Colorado State University, the DOE’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, Los Alamos National Laboratory, the Naval Research Laboratory and three companies: Marvel Fusion, Xcimer Energy and General Atomics.

“The IQSE was built by the visionary Chancellor’s Research Initiative program started by [Texas A&M University System] Chancellor John Sharp,” said Dr. Alexei Sokolov, a professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy and IQSE associate director. “We look forward to bringing the IQSE expertise in exotic laser physics to bear on the laser-fusion promise.”

The RISE hub is funded by the DOE’s Office of Science, Fusion Energy Science through the DOE’s Inertial Fusion Energy Science and Technology Accelerator Research (IFE-STAR). The RISE hub will combine innovative target concepts with new developments in excimer gas lasers and solid-state laser drivers to open up novel IFE regimes. The hub will also prioritize the involvement of students and workforce development, and university-industry-national laboratory collaborations.

To learn more about research in quantum science and engineering at Texas A&M or the RISE hub, visit iqse.tamu.edu.