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Media Contacts
![Former ORNL Director Thom Mason presents Tom Kollie with a National Intelligence Meritorious Unit Citation on behalf of James Clapper, former director of national intelligence, and the national intelligence community in June 2017. Credit: Jason Richards/ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy](/sites/default/files/styles/list_page_thumbnail/public/2021-09/2017-P04637_1.jpg?h=b6236d98&itok=Riz5mhDe)
A 25-year career with the U.S. Navy, commanding combat missions overseas, brought Tom Kollie back to where he came from — ready to serve his country in a new way.
![Summer Widner, Stephanie Timbs, James Gaugler and James Avenell of ORNL are part of a team that processes thorium-228, a byproduct of actinium-227. As new uses for thorium are realized, particularly in medicine, the lab expects the demand for the radioisotope to grow.](/sites/default/files/styles/list_page_thumbnail/public/2021-08/Part%20of%20Th-228%20Team_1.jpg?h=09b6d1d3&itok=1_l1hx2l)
As a medical isotope, thorium-228 has a lot of potential — and Oak Ridge National Laboratory produces a lot.
![Initially, Kevin Gaddis’s adapted HPIC will be used only for the fourth of six separations in actinium-225 processing, but he hopes it will later be used for other separations — and other isotopes. Credit: Carlos Jones/ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy](/sites/default/files/styles/list_page_thumbnail/public/2021-07/2021-P03893_1.jpg?h=c6980913&itok=DU6L5EUx)
An Oak Ridge National Laboratory researcher has invented a version of an isotope-separating device that can withstand extreme environments, including radiation and chemical solvents.
![An ORNL-led team comprising researchers from multiple DOE national laboratories is using artificial intelligence and computational screening techniques – in combination with experimental validation – to identify and design five promising drug therapy approaches to target the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Credit: Michelle Lehman/ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy](/sites/default/files/styles/list_page_thumbnail/public/2021-06/frame1.png?h=d1cb525d&itok=51pwBWyP)
An ORNL-led team comprising researchers from multiple DOE national laboratories is using artificial intelligence and computational screening techniques – in combination with experimental validation – to identify and design five promising drug therapy approaches to target the SARS-CoV-2 virus.
![Balendra Sutharshan](/sites/default/files/styles/list_page_thumbnail/public/2021-06/2021-P01348.jpg?h=d33ebf6f&itok=qwQNPmu1)
In the mid-1980s, Balendra Sutharshan moved to Canada from the island nation of Sri Lanka. That move set Sutharshan on a path that had him heading continent-spanning collaborations and holding leadership posts at multiple Department of Energy
![Brenda Smith, shown here working with a gas viscometer in her research lab, is one of several people concurrently researching the thermophysical properties of feedstock gas. Their research will support computational researchers who are designing processes to separate isotopes. Credit: Carlos Jones/ORNL, US Dept. of Energy](/sites/default/files/styles/list_page_thumbnail/public/2021-05/2021-P01103_0.jpg?h=13f436e5&itok=lMLI1EqU)
For years Brenda Smith found fulfillment working with nuclear batteries, a topic she’s been researching as a chemist at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
![ORNL’s Sergei Kalinin and Rama Vasudevan (foreground) use scanning probe microscopy to study bulk ferroelectricity and surface electrochemistry -- and generate a lot of data. Credit: Jason Richards/ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy](/sites/default/files/styles/list_page_thumbnail/public/2021-05/KalininVasudevan_2017-P03014_0.jpg?h=1116cd87&itok=KEEOB4hi)
At the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory, scientists use artificial intelligence, or AI, to accelerate the discovery and development of materials for energy and information technologies.
![Spin chains in a quantum system undergo a collective twisting motion as the result of quasiparticles clustering together. Demonstrating this KPZ dynamics concept are pairs of neighboring spins, shown in red, pointing upward in contrast to their peers, in blue, which alternate directions. Credit: Michelle Lehman/ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy](/sites/default/files/styles/list_page_thumbnail/public/2021-03/1_full%5B2%5D.png?h=d1cb525d&itok=l8KtOI25)
Using complementary computing calculations and neutron scattering techniques, researchers from the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge and Lawrence Berkeley national laboratories and the University of California, Berkeley, discovered the existence of an elusive type of spin dynamics in a quantum mechanical system.
![Targeted alpha therapy can deliver radiation to specific cells, with minimal effect on surrounding, healthy cells. Credit: Michelle Lehman and Jaimee Janiga/ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy](/sites/default/files/2021-03/gif_high_res.gif)
A rare isotope in high demand for treating cancer is now more available to pharmaceutical companies developing and testing new drugs.
![Technicians John Dyer and T. Dyer use a manipulator arm in a shielded cave in ORNL’s Radiochemical Engineering Development Center to separate concentrated Pm-147 from byproducts generated through the production of Pu-238.](/sites/default/files/styles/list_page_thumbnail/public/2021-03/Promethium%20feature_0.jpg?h=a1f525db&itok=6XSsJdot)
A new method developed at Oak Ridge National Laboratory proves one effort’s trash is another’s valuable isotope. One of the byproducts of the lab’s national plutonium-238 production program is promethium-147, a rare isotope used in nuclear batteries and to measure the thickness of materials.