The Federal Laboratory Consortium (FLC) has recognized the commercialization efforts of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL)'s researchers and Innovation and Partnerships Office (IPO) for the mission innovation impact of two Lab-developed technologies through a 2026 award and an honorable mention.
IPO's Business Development Executive (BDE) Yash Vaishnav and colleague Samantha Madru, along with LLNL Group Leader for Synthetic Biology Dan Park and Deputy Division Leader Yongqin Jiao, won FLC's 2026 Excellence in Tech Transfer Award for commercializing the Laboratory's Lanmodulin-Based Rare Earth Purification (LanPure) with Alta Resource Technologies.
This is LLNL's 45th FLC technology transfer award since 1985. Recipients will be honored at the 2026 FLC awards ceremony on May 13, 2026, during the FLC national meeting in Seattle.
IPO's work commercializing LLNL's monolithic telescopes also received an honorable mention under the Excellence in Tech Transfer Award category, recognizing the efforts of current and former team members involved.
The FLC is a congressionally chartered, nationwide network that helps accelerate technology transfer from federal labs into the marketplace. It is composed of more than 300 federal labs, agencies and research centers and its awards are the premier honors for federal technology transfer. Charlotte Eng, a BDE within IPO, is LLNL's FLC representative.
Lanmodulin-Based Rare Earth Purification (LanPure) - Winner
Rare-earth elements (REEs) are essential for many electronic, energy and advanced defense technologies. New biomining techniques could lead to a robust domestic supply chain that reduces reliance on mining and processing in China.
The FLC award recognizes excellence in IPO's technology transfer of the Laboratory's LanPure technology, which can selectively extract and separate REEs from diverse sources, including rare earth ores, mining waste, coal byproducts and recycled electronics. LanPure began as a partnership with the Pennsylvania State University.
"For us, this award is validation that fundamental science done at national laboratories and academia has the potential to translate into practical solutions for critical national challenges," said LLNL scientist Yongqin Jiao. "It's rewarding to see the technology move beyond the Lab and into the scale-up phases. Soon, it could begin creating real impact."
Boulder, Colorado-based Alta Resource Technologies has exclusively licensed LanPure to recover valuable minerals from feedstocks that have historically been too complex to process economically, like mine tailings and electronic waste. To date, Alta has raised more than $35 million from leading venture capital firms and has also received funding and support from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the U.S. Department of Energy's Critical Materials Innovation Hub and the State of Colorado.
LanPure's commercialization carries clear national security stakes. A resilient domestic supply chain for rare earths and other critical minerals depends not just on access to raw materials, but also on the ability to separate and refine them at scale - historically the hardest and most concentrated link in the chain. By licensing LanPure to Alta, LLNL is helping bring that domestic capability online cost-effectively and without the toxic solvents and energy-intensive steps that dominate conventional separation today.
"Our ongoing success in industry partnership provides a path forward to building a resilient domestic supply chain of these critical minerals, thereby strengthening national security," said IPO BDE Yash Vaishnav.
LanPure addresses the inefficiency of traditional REE purification methods by using natural proteins called lanmodulins to separate REEs with impressive selectivity, speed, reusability and sustainability. "Moving a technology from the Lab to the marketplace requires more than a scientific breakthrough - it requires the right partnerships," said LLNL scientist Dan Park. "Receiving this award highlights the importance of partnerships between national labs, universities and industry to design the technology with real-world process requirements in mind."
LLNL's researchers and IPO continue to work with industry to scale LanPure for different feedstocks.
Other LLNL team members include Ziye Dong, Jeremy Seidel, Patrick Diep, Christina Kang-Yun and Gauthier Deblonde. External collaborators include Joseph Cotruvo, Jr. and his group at Penn State. This work was sponsored by the Critical Materials Innovation Hub, an Energy Innovation Hub funded by the U.S. Department of Energy, and by the DARPA Environmental Microbes as a BioEngineering Resource (EMBER) program.
Monolithic Telescopes - Honorable Mention
The monolithic telescope is one of the most disruptive technologies to come out of LLNL in recent years. Tomorrow's challenges in the space domain demand rapid iteration and cost-effective design for national security and private enterprise. Compact yet highly adaptable, the monolithic system enables advanced optics with unmatched versatility. Unlike standard telescopes, this design features fixed alignment set during manufacturing, making it more reliable and easier to store and transport.
At least three missions have launched with monolithic telescopes in the payloads, including Terran Orbital's GEOStare1 and GEOStare2 missions plus its Pathfinder Technology Demonstrator. GEOStare2 has been in orbit for over four years and has collected hundreds of thousands of images for space domain awareness. Additionally, the Pandora mission, launched this year, demonstrates a new model for low-cost, high-impact space science using compact telescope technology. Other payloads will fly this year on the U.S. Space Force Victus Haze mission and with Firefly's Blue Ghost 2 Lunar Mission.
LLNL's most extensive technology transfer is with Starris: Optimax Space Systems, working through a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA) with IPO to commercialize the technology and create an agile, industry-based payload development and production capability.
FLC's honorable mention recognizes: Anne Knapp, IPO associate agreements officer; Clarence Cannon, IPO BDE for LLNL's Space IP portfolio; and Elsie Quaite-Randall, former IPO Deputy Director. Scientific contributors are Alex Pertica, Wim De Vries, Brian Bauman, Frank Ravizza, John Ganino, Peter Supsinskas, Jordan Smilo, Lance Simms, Alex Patton, Hilary Johnson, John Cortes, Collin Averill, Darrell Carter, Scot Olivier, Michael Pivovaroff, Robert Bickell, Bill Bruner and Vincent Riot.
