42 U.S.C. § 16317 — Systems biology program

(a) Program (1) Establishment: The Secretary must establish a research, development, and demonstration program in microbial and plant systems biology, protein science, computational biology, and environmental science, to support the Department's energy, national security, and environmental missions. (2) Grants: The program must support individual researchers and multidisciplinary research teams through competitive, merit-reviewed grants. (3) Consultation: The Secretary must consult with other federal agencies that conduct genetic and protein research. (b) Goals: The program must aim to develop technologies and methods, based on the biology of genomes, microbes, and plants, that: (1) can help produce fuels, including hydrogen, in sustainable systems that cut greenhouse gas emissions; (2) convert carbon dioxide to organic carbon; (3) detoxify soils and water — including at Department facilities — contaminated with heavy metals and radiological materials; (4) develop cellulosic and other feedstocks that use less land and resources while promoting sustainable use of soil, water, energy, forests, and land, and protecting air, water, and soil quality; and (5) address other Department missions the Secretary identifies. (c) Plan (1) Development of plan: Within 1 year of August 8, 2005, the Secretary had to prepare and send Congress a research plan describing how the program would meet the goals in (b). (2) Review of plan: The Secretary had to contract with the National Academy of Sciences to review that plan, and send Congress the Academy's review, along with the Secretary's response to its recommendations, within 18 months of sending the plan. (d) User facilities and ancillary equipment: Within the funds authorized for this part, money must be available to develop, plan, build, buy, or operate special equipment, instrumentation, or facilities — including user facilities at National Laboratories — for researchers doing systems biology, proteomics, and related work. (e) Prohibition on biomedical and human cell and human subject research (1) No biomedical research: The Secretary may not conduct biomedical research under this program. (2) Limitations: Nothing in this section authorizes the Secretary to conduct research or demonstrations (A) on human cells or human subjects, or (B) designed to apply directly to human cells or human subjects. (f) Bioenergy research centers (1) In general: Under the related program in section 18644(a), the Director may support up to 6 bioenergy research centers to do fundamental research in plant and microbial systems biology, biological imaging and analysis, and genomics, to accelerate research and development of advanced biofuels, bioenergy, and biobased materials, chemicals, and products made from regionally diverse feedstocks, and to help move research results to industry. Center activities may include: (A) accelerating domestication of bioenergy-relevant plants, microbes, and their microbial communities to enable high-value coproduct development throughout the bioenergy supply chain; (B) developing science and technology to ensure sustainability in producing advanced biofuels and bioproducts from lignocellulosic biomass; and (C) using genomics, molecular biology, catalysis science, chemical engineering, systems biology, and computing and robotics tools to sustainably turn biomass into advanced biofuels and bioproducts. (2) Selection and duration: (A) A center is selected competitively on merit review for up to 5 years, subject to available funding, starting on its establishment date. (B) The Director considers applications from National Laboratories, multi-institution collaborations, and other appropriate entities. (C) A center already operating on August 9, 2022, may continue receiving support for up to 5 years from its establishment date. (D) The Director selects new centers competitively on merit review, giving special consideration to applications from a university (as defined in section 1001 of title 20) located in an "eligible jurisdiction" (as defined in section 13503(b)(3)(A)). (3) Renewal: After a center's initial period ends, the Director may renew its support for up to 5 more years on merit review. For a center that has operated for 10 years since its last competitive selection, the Director may renew it competitively for up to 5 more years, and may later renew it once more on merit review for up to 5 additional years. (4) Activities: Centers must undertake research to speed up production of advanced biofuels and bioproducts from biomass, including identifying the best plant species for energy crops and improving breeding, propagation, planting, harvesting, storage, and processing. Activities may include: (A) sustainability research, including understanding how bioenergy crops interact with environmental factors, identifying the research most likely to improve the economics of advanced biofuels and bioproducts, and using multiscale modeling to better predict how bioenergy cropping ecosystems behave; (B) feedstock development — including lignocellulosic, algal, gaseous waste (like carbon oxides and methane), and direct air capture of single-carbon gases via plants and microbes — including developing genetic, genomic, and high-throughput tools to enhance feedstocks and their microbiomes, field-testing new feedstock crops under varied conditions, and building experiment-informed models predicting feedstock performance; (C) improving lignocellulosic deconstruction and separation, including developing feedstock-agnostic breakdown processes, understanding plant cell wall structure during breakdown, and improving enzymes and methods for breaking down cellulose, hemicellulose, and lignin; and (D) improving the feedstock conversion process, including developing high-throughput screening for high-performing microbial strains and communities, building a broad toolkit of engineerable microorganisms and communities with high-throughput gene-function testing, improving microbial tolerance to toxins to boost yields and understanding the basis of that tolerance, advancing batch, continuous, and combined processing, identifying and optimizing pathways producing efficient, environmentally sound bioproducts from biomass, developing real-time analytical techniques for process streams, creating methods to identify valuable target molecules and make use of existing byproduct streams, improving feedstocks with higher levels of desired bioproducts including lignin streams, and developing integrated biological and chemical catalytic approaches to produce a diverse portfolio of advanced biofuels and bioproducts. (5) Industry partnerships: Centers must establish industry partnerships to move research results into commercial applications. (6) Coordination: Working with the Department's Bioenergy Technologies Office, the Secretary must support interdisciplinary research improving the capacity, efficiency, resilience, security, reliability, and affordability of producing and using advanced biofuels and bioproducts, while enabling positive impacts and avoiding negative ones on ecosystems, people, and historically marginalized communities. (7) Funding: Out of the funds authorized under section 18644(k) for a fiscal year, $30,000,000 per center is authorized for each of fiscal years 2023 through 2027. (8) Definitions: "Advanced biofuel" has the meaning in section 8101 of title 7. "Bioenergy" means energy derived from biofuels. "Biomass" has the meaning in section 15852(b) of this title. "Bioproduct" has the meaning given to "biobased product" in section 8101 of title 7.