Images from Eight Decades: the 2000s

In 2004, Steven Chu became the Lab’s sixth director and 10th Nobel laureate.  The Lab got big on nanotechnology with the opening of its Molecular Foundry, a center devoted to nano-scale research, and started the first Synthetic Biology Department, where promising developments in anti-malarial and anti-AIDS drug research are already being realized.  Lab researchers also plunged into carbon sequestration, exploring such possibilities as deep-ocean storage, and looked to apply information gained from sequencing the human genome to the development of new diagnostics and therapies. Another area ripe for exploration is the explosion of stars deep in outer space.  SNAP, the SuperNova/Acceleration Probe, hopes the study of such phenomena will shed new light on dark energy.