Biological and Environmental Program Integration Center
The new BioEPIC facility will enable capabilities to sense, study, and simulate biological-environmental interactions across scales.
BioEPIC is a 73,000 square-foot facility being developed at Berkeley Lab which will integrate research that leverages the expertise and capabilities to sense, study, and simulate biological-environmental interactions across scales of space and time. It occupies the Bayview parcel where the Bevatron accelerator facility once sat and is adjacent to the Integrative Genomics Building, in the heart of the Lab's main Hill campus.
The BioEPIC building rendering. The Bevatron and Bayview site.
The facility will house scientists from the Biosciences and Earth & Environmental Sciences Areas, and is firmly grounded in and furthers the missions of both of these research areas. The co-location of these groups is intended to facilitate opportunities to connect and amplify four U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Biological and Environmental Research (BER) program Science Focus Area (SFA) investments: Belowground Biogeochemistry; Ecosystems and Networks Integrated with Genes and Molecular Assemblies (ENIGMA); Microbial Community Analysis and Functional Evaluation in Soils (m-CAFEs); and Watershed Function.
These projects leverage innovative research at field sites around the country and in controlled, fabricated laboratory and testbed ecosystems.
Four Science Focus Area projects led by Berkeley Lab will be represented within the new BioEPIC facility. Plants in EcoPOD lysimeter. Cone penetrometer testing core sample from Bear Creek watershed, Oak Ridge, Tenn. UC Experimental Field Station, Hopland, Calif. East River catchment near the headwaters of the Colorado River.
BioEPIC is envisioned to enhance existing research by these SFAs through a suite of next-generation research tools now being developed that would dramatically improve scientists’ ability to conduct carefully controlled experiments on soil-microbe-plant interactions. These tools would include instruments and computing infrastructure to virtually connect BioEPIC to relevant field sites, enabling the rapid transfer of insights discovered under laboratory conditions to the sites’ dynamic environments.
Co-locating these capabilities in one building will enable researchers to quantify how microbes influence the environment and how the environment influences microbial processes, across scales of space and time—from molecules to ecosystems, and from nanoseconds to decades. In addition to scientific discoveries, these new capabilities could lead to entirely new ways to harness microbes for game-changing solutions. Examples include more efficient methods for improving soil and water quality, enhanced terrestrial carbon storage, better drought-tolerance in crops, and higher-yield plant precursors for biofuels.
Co-locating these capabilities in one building will enable researchers to quantify how microbes influence the environment and how the environment influences microbial processes, across scales of space and time – from molecules to ecosystems, and from nanoseconds to decades.
Cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM), EcoPOD, and the SMARTSoils testbed are three research tools planned for BioEPIC.
One new research tool planned for BioEPIC is an EcoPOD, which, at about the size of a phone booth, is envisioned to allow scientists to study plants, microbes, soil, and air in a fully instrumented and contained miniature ecosystem. Another component for BioEPIC is a SMART (Sensors at Mesoscale for Autonomous Remote Telemetry) soils testbed, which would enable the exploration of soil-microbe-plant interactions under controlled yet “realistic” conditions that include soil and plant variability and hydrogeochemical gradients.
BioEPIC was designed to meet Berkeley Lab's stringent policy on Sustainability Standards for New Construction, featuring the use of electric heat pumps for space and water heating, deep energy efficiency (beating energy code by 48%), and highly water-efficient fixtures. The heat pumps make use of waste heat generated in the building and avoid the use of natural gas. The electric heating system significantly reduces the building's operational carbon footprint compared to a typical natural gas boiler plant and allows greenhouse gas emissions for the building to approach zero as the state electricity grid is decarbonized.
BioEPIC itself incorporates many sustainability features and is aiming to achieve a LEED Gold Standard.
BioEPIC building activity as of April 13, 2022.
BioEPIC was also designed to achieve a LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Gold certification from the U.S. Green Building Council. LEED is a prominent green building certification that rates a building’s sustainability aspects. Buildings are evaluated on a variety of aspects, including energy and water efficiency, reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, sustainable site development, indoor environmental quality, and more.
The placing of the final structural beam on the BioEPIC facility is planned for May 2022. You can watch the construction unfold via this live webcam .
