By Karen Hunt, WSU Office of Research

Batteries developed by Shuo Feng could someday revolutionize the nation’s power grid and help electric vehicles go further on one charge than ever before.

Feng is one of five students who completed their doctorate program through the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) and Washington State University Distinguished Graduate Research Program (DGRP) in May.

The DGRP plays an important role in training the next generation of researchers and scholars and provides an important conduit for WSU students to work on a nationally relevant project central to PNNL’s mission, conducting fundamental science or applied research relevant to energy, earth systems or national security.

“I am working on developing high energy-density lithium-sulfur batteries which can be used in future power grids and electric vehicles,” said Feng. “During the last two years, our team at PNNL has thoroughly discussed the challenges in practical sulfur cathodes and elucidated the design principles of sulfur cathodes for practical applications. Our investigations on material synthesis, cathode porosity, and electrolyte permeability provided a basis for the next phase of lithium-sulfur battery research.”

The PNNL-WSU DGRP is designed to help doctorate students work collaboratively with faculty at WSU and scientists at PNNL. In this program, the students complete their course work and qualifying exam at WSU and then transfer to PNNL for the remainder of their research. This provides students the opportunity to leverage PNNL’s state-of-the-art research infrastructure and to work directly alongside their advisors and other collaborators at PNNL.

“The PNNL-WSU Distinguished Graduate Research Program is a unique opportunity that taps into the knowledge and world-class capabilities available at both institutions,” said Asaph Cousins, professor in the School of Biological Sciences and WSU DGRP program manager.

The DGRP plays an important role in training the next generation of researchers and scholars and provides an important conduit for WSU students to work on a national project central to PNNL’s mission.

“The DGRP sets students up for success in the next phase of their research career and beyond. The training and experience in a national laboratory setting allows these students to build on the knowledge from the classroom and learn how to tackle hard scientific questions and real-world technological challenges,” said Suresh Baskaran, director of research partnerships at PNNL.

Along with Feng, this year’s graduates are Xiaolu Li, Gowtham Kandaperumal, Benjamin Schuessler, and Monish Mukherjee, which is the largest group of DGRP students to graduate within a single semester.

“The DGRP offers a valuable opportunity to learn new technologies and communicate with scientists with different backgrounds in PNNL. It provided me with different angles to think about my research and dig deeper with cutting-edge technologies,” said Li. “The experience helped me to look into what I really want to do and plan the right career path for me.”

The program aligns WSU faculty and students with scientists and their research programs at PNNL to increase the number of STEM doctorate students at WSU who will then go on to work in universities, national laboratories and industry. The program matches students’ research interests with existing areas of collaboration between WSU and PNNL, such as nuclear science and engineering, electric power grid, bioproducts, catalysis, environment, water and soil science and engineering, and other emerging areas of collaboration.

“The opportunity presented by DGRP to work in a national laboratory setting has provided me with great exposure to the wide diversity of ongoing research projects at PNNL,” said Mukherjee. “This has immensely helped me envision relevant research problems and has prepared me for a career in research. Adapting to the research infrastructure at PNNL has also helped sharpen my skillset with analytical software tools and experimental facilities.”

The research topics for this graduating group of DGRP students cover a wide spectrum of topics: bioconversion of lignocellulose to lipids for the production of biodiesel, interface stereology in polycrystalline materials, development of high energy-density lithium-sulfur batteries, grid resiliency, and consumer participation in power systems via smart devices.

“My dissertation research focused on interface stereology in polycrystalline materials. In other words, extracting three-dimensional information from two-dimensional pictures. We developed a method of characterization that can assist in studying the performance behavior of a given material through another lens. While still in relative infancy, this project still has far reaching applications to materials and computational science with plenty of opportunity to explore and research further,” said Schuessler.

With real-world national laboratory experience, DGRP graduating students will start their early careers as scientists at PNNL and at other organizations, including those in industry.

“My next venture is working in the utility industry and bringing to the table my research specialization in the resiliency of distribution grids, analytics, and design. I am joining Commonwealth Edison as a senior engineer for the Chicago West region in the summer,” said Kandaperumal.

By Maegan Murray, ���سԹ�

RICHLAND, Wash. – Several Washington State University Tri-Cities students got to see first-hand how top-tier university research can impact their local community through the ���سԹ� Chancellor’s Summer Scholar Program supported by Washington River Protection Solutions.

Throughout the summer, selected students worked one-on-one with a university professor and graduate students to perform research pertaining to their degree interest. Each student receives funds to support their summer research projects from WRPS.

“Through the Chancellor’s Summer Scholar program, students pursuing a bachelor’s degree get the opportunity to be a part of intensive research that could positively influence the Tri-Cities community,” said Kate McAteer, vice chancellor for academic affairs at ���سԹ�. “Ranging from engineering, to the arts, to the sciences, there are a variety of opportunities for students to apply their skills in a real-world setting, which only further sets them up for success in their future career.”

This year, 10 students were selected for the program in the areas of computer science, the arts, materials engineering, bioengineering, environmental science, electrical engineering, and biological sciences.

Students were provided with $2,250 in funding to support their summer project, with the exception of one student group, who received $2,000 as a team. Many students also continue to work with their faculty mentors during the regular school year.

Willow of the Waste – Jared Johnson and Aaron Van Morris

Students Jared Johnson and Aaron Van Morris worked with Sena Clara Creston, clinical assistant professor of fine arts, to refine and re-engineer a robotic sculpture known as “The Willow of the Waste.”

The project is an designed to look like a tree, incorporating mechanical and electrical components. The tree is animated and interactive, with the branches slowly opening, closing and pulsating light to give the appearance of a living, breathing plant. Once the viewer approaches the tree, the branches open, inviting the viewer inside. The students are applying skills in circuit design, power distribution and coding from different inputs and outputs to improve upon an existing design. The interdisciplinary project combines engineering, computer science and the arts to create an interactive sculpture that also speaks to plastic waste, as it is made from discarded plastics like water bottles and shopping bags.

Flexible sensors for robotics – Mikaela Matkowski

Student Mikaela Matkowski worked with Amir Ameli, former assistant professor of engineering, to investigate the sensing behavior of 3d-printed sensors that can be used in a range of robotics.

She used a material called thermoplastic polyurethane with various weights of multiwalled carbon nanotubes to produce a material that has excellent conductive properties and reacts well to compression and stretching. She analyzed the pressure and touch sensing abilities, as well as the electrical resistance behaviors of the printed sensors. The sensors have potential application in robotics hands that, when used to touch a surface, have the ability to appropriately register contact of the hand to the object.

Refining a waste material for commercial bioproducts production – Yesenia Che

Student Yesenia Che worked with Bin Yang, associate professor of biological systems engineering and doctoral student Xiaolu Li to find a seamless and cheaper way to refine a high-value product in the biofuels creation process that is used for many commercial products.

Lignin, a primary material comprised in the cell wall of plants, is a large waste product in the biofuels creation process. Vallinin is a valuable product derived from lignin that can be used for a range of bioproducts. It is currently used in various fields, including food, cosmetics and pharmaceutical industries. The price for the material, however, tends to be unstable due to cost and complicated procedures required for producing the material from lignin. Che worked with Yang to use a bacteria that degrades lignin and allows for the easier refinement and production of vallinin that doesn’t require the use of the whole plant cell for extraction – a process known as a cell free system. This process may lead to an effective technique for the production of natural vanillin at low cost.

Identifying nutrient limitations in Cascade Mountain Range for understanding nitrogen fixation – Jeannette Lilly

Student Jeannette Lilly worked with Sarah Roley, assistant professor of environmental science, and graduate student Erica Bakker to analyze nutrient limitation in the Cascade Range that could lead to better understanding of where nitrogen fixation occurs in freshwater streams in the Pacific Northwest.

Nitrogen fixation converts nitrogen gas into a nutrient that is essential for all life. While there has been extensive research on nitrogen fixation in the open ocean, estuaries and lakes, comparatively little research has been done on nitrogen fixation in freshwater streams. Nitrogen fixation typically occurs in nutrient-poor streams like those in the Cascades. It may be critical to supporting the food web, including insects and fish, in Cascadian streams. Jeanette established the nutrient status of the study streams, which helps to predict where this process is important.

Finding ways to reduce methane production using bioengineering – Tina Tran

Student Tina Tran is working with Birgitte Ahring, professor of biological systems and chemical engineering, and doctoral student Supriya Karekar on the bioengineering of cow rumen microbiota by bio-augmentation with selected microorganisms to reduce methane production from the rumen.

Ruminants such as cows and sheep are major contributors of greenhouse gas coming from the methanogens inhabiting the rumen. Methane is more than 20 times more potent as a greenhouse gas compared to carbon dioxide. In the laboratory, they are working with rumen model systems and are trying to find ways to mitigate the problems of methane release by substituting methanogens with other and potentially more beneficial microorganisms. The specific focus is on homo-acetogenic bacteria, which potentially could replace methanogens in the rumen while producing beneficial products, which can promote livestock production.

Improving efficiencies of home heating and cooling systems – Arturo Gutierrez Larios

Student Arturo Gutierrez Larios worked with Mohamed Osman, professor of electrical engineering, to identify ways to increase the efficiency of home heating and cooling systems through the implementation of better temperature regulations systems.

Gutierrez Larios developed a concept based on what is known as the Internet of Things, where the internet can be extended to an infinite amount of applications through components like sensors and wireless communication between devices. His system implements multiple temperature sensors that are connected through a network, as opposed to utilizing a single temperature sensor as is common in homes today. A temperature controller receives information from the sensors in each room, and the controller sends commands to the network to adjust the airflow of each register based on comparisons made on the calculated temperature differentials. Temperature settings are managed through a smartphone app. The system helps minimize wasted energy in homes.

Studying jaw protusion in fish for insights into evolutionary changes in organisms – Ellie Barber and Danielle Ringo

Students Ellie Barber and Danielle Ringo are working with Jim Cooper, instructor of biology, to study why jaw protrusion does or does not occur during the development in fish that could lead to insights into how organisms evolve and when.

Fish develop different feeding biomechanics in their lifespan that determines their economic feeding niche and where they fall on the food chain. Using high-speed filming techniques, the team is working to pinpoint the precise phase during metamorphosis in which the feeding biomechanics of young fish begin to resemble that of adult fish with protrusile jaws. By using gene expression labelling and transcriptome comparative analysis, they hope to gain a clearer insight as to exactly how and why these morphological changes occur in the wild.

Determining impact of fungi on tomato plants – Javier Chavez Lara

Javier Chavez Lara is working with Tanya Cheeke, assistant professor of biology, to determine the impact of a type of fungi on the growth of tomato plants, specifically comparing highly-bred tomato plants with less-domesticated wild type varieties.

Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi forms symbiotic relationships with most plant species by colonizing plant roots to provide the plants with nutrients and water in exchange for carbon. Plants grown in conditions of high fertilization and other agricultural practices reduce the ability of the fungi to colonize their roots. Chavez Lara hypothesizes that the less-domesticated wild-type varieties will have a greater growth response with the fungi than the highly-bred tomato plants. The project will allow for the development of a model system to test mechanisms that regulate the level of the fungi colonization in plant roots.

RICHLAND, Wash. – Washington State University Tri-Cities undergraduate students will display semester and course research and art projects as part of the Undergraduate Research Symposium and Art Exhibition April 30 – May 3.

Sessions will take place from noon – 1 p.m. each day, Tuesday through Friday, in Consolidated Information Center (CIC) 120. The fine arts session will also take place noon – 1 p.m. on Thursday, May 2, in the ���سԹ� art gallery in the CIC.

“Throughout the symposium and art exhibition, students have the opportunity to share their research and art projects, and to practice communicating their work to people outside their area of study,” said Allison Matthews, clinical assistant professor of psychology and coordinator for the symposium.

“This event also highlights the development of research and creative skills through their coursework, as well as undergraduate student involvement in WSU’s larger research initiatives to advance knowledge and pursue discovery,” she said.

Academic areas highlighted during the symposium include: anthropology, sociology, political science, English, biology, digital technology and culture, fine arts, computer science, history, psychology and engineering.

Some of the projects featured during the event include:

• Investigating the Effects of Nutrient Addition on Mycorrhizal Colonization of Grassland Plants
• The development of a Solid Liquid Interface Monitor (SLIM) – the design, of which, has potential to one-day be implemented at the Hanford Site to create three-dimensional scans of waste in Hanford tanks
• A remote-controlled, small-scale airplane that was entered into the SAE Aero Design Competition
• The design of an application that visualizes location-enabled cabs in a map interface, selects the trips from a common list and assigns them to the perfect driver or car to maximize a driver’s profit
• An empirical assessment of an undergraduate teaching assistant training program
• Advanced drawing and sculpture projects from throughout the spring semester

For more information, contact Matthews at 509-372-7146 or almatthews@wsu.edu.

By Brandon Schrand, College of Agricultural, Human and Natural Resource Sciences

RICHLAND, Wash. – When Madeleine Higgins was trying to pay the rent in New York as a struggling fashion writer, she never dreamed that one day she would be interning in a custom-crush facility in Walla Walla, Wash., learning to make wine as a top-student in and garnering national distinction.

A Los Angeles native who grew up in Seattle, Higgins attended Loyola Marymount where she majored in Psychology, minored in English, and sold shoes part time to foot the bills. After graduating in 2013, Higgins landed a job in New York writing for Condé Nast’s , though she quickly found herself living in an unsustainable situation.

“I wasn’t surviving in New York,” she said. “I couldn’t afford to eat.”

It was when her mother was diagnosed with breast cancer that Madeleine finally said goodbye to New York and returned to Seattle to be with family. As her mother recovered, Higgins started selling shoes again, helping out where she could.

“It was during this time I realized that writing wasn’t going to happen for me,” she said. “I don’t think I had enough passion to move through the difficulty of getting started. That’s when a chance encounter changed everything.”

A winery tour that changed everything

Higgins said she had a family friend who worked for , and that hearing someone from the industry talk about wine was very interesting. The conversation led to a private tour of the Woodinville, Wash. winemaking facility.

“I was really inspired by that particular tour,” she said.

In researching winemaking as a career, she was immediately drawn to WSU’s viticulture and enology program. But it was still a big decision. Then her mother gave her the push she needed.

“She told me to jump in and go for it,” she said.

Empowered by her mother’s courage and triumph, Madeleine moved to the Tri-Cities and started classes in 2016, ready for the challenge.

“I can say that I have always worked hard, and in my family—we’re Irish—hard work is one of our things,” she said.

Hard work pays off

Over the last three years, her hard work has yielded great success. Beyond maintaining a high grade-point average, Higgins completed a research assistantship, won Best Undergraduate Poster at the Washington Winegrowers Convention, created a wine for WSU Blended Learning at and secured a coveted internship with in Napa Valley this summer.

Then this spring, she was named  Student of the Year, an accolade that comes with a $15,000 scholarship from the magazine’s scholarship foundation.

The honor, Higgins said, validates all the 5 a.m. routines of checking Brix, the grapes’ sugar content, in Walla Walla that turned into late nights at the studying phenolic compound structures, in addition to all the weeks of research with no days off in between her internship and school commitments.

But above all, she said the recognition told her that all her hard work and leap into a new life was worth it.

Looking back, she credits the program’s faculty for what she has accomplished.

“They are incredibly supportive,” she said. “At WSU, I have access to some of the most important wine researchers in the world.”

Life comes full circle

Many aspects of her life are now coming full circle, she said. Having once written for a magazine, she is now being honored by one. And after completing her internship in Napa Valley this summer, she plans on traveling to New Zealand.

“The same family friend who first introduced me to wine has a daughter there and a lot of wine connections,” she said.

In New Zealand, she said she wants to learn by comparison.

“The only way for me to make an impact is to learn what other wine regions are like,” she said.

But ultimately, she intends on making that impact at home.

“Washington is a really innovative place for wine making, she added. “Someone told me it’s the ‘rock and roll of wine.’ I love the idea of being a part of that.”

Learn more about  at .

By Will Ferguson, WSU News

Noel Vest’s goal was to go to community college to earn a degree as a chemical dependency counselor when he walked out the doors of a Nevada prison on June 28, 2009.

Other than hard labor, it was the only career he thought was possible for a formerly incarcerated person.

Almost a decade later Vest is about to graduate from Washington State University with a PhD in psychology and start the next chapter of his life as a postdoctoral researcher at Stanford University.

“Never in a million years would I have dreamed I’d be where I am today,” Vest said. “There’s a lot to be said about finding what drives you and for me that has been pursuing a career in higher education. It gave me the direction and motivation I needed to turn my life around.”

Road to recovery

As a young adult, Vest’s personal struggles with alcohol, drug and substance use left him isolated from his family and young daughter and eventually landed him in a Nevada prison cell. He served seven years for 21 different charges, ranging from drug convictions to identity theft.

Halfway through his sentence, he knew he needed a change.

In addition to attending Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, Vest started taking courses at the College of Southern Nevada and teaching in the prison school. He quickly discovered learning and teaching others gave him a sense of direction and purpose he had never felt before.

When he was released from prison, Vest moved to Richland, Wash., and became a certified chemical dependency counselor through the Columbia Basin College.

He later attended ���سԹ� and graduated with a bachelors in psychology and a 4.0 GPA, a marked improvement from his 2.02 GPA in high school. In 2014, Vest was accepted into the WSU experimental psychology doctorate program in Pullman.

Vest’s PhD advisor and mentor, Sarah Tragesser, associate professor of psychology at ���سԹ�, expressed to him early on the importance of publishing frequently and having at least one publication as the first author.

Vest leveraged his connections in the chemical dependency field in the Tri-Cities to orchestrate a series of projects examining how mental illness, chronic pain and other co-occurring conditions influence the likelihood of a person developing a substance use disorder. He used the results of his studies to publish four papers, three of which were first author publications.

“Noel’s research identified how physical pain, depression and other individual differences can impact treatment and how certain points of time in treatment can be critical points of intervention,” Tragesser said. “I will miss his great sense of humor and infectious passion for substance use research. He is always thinking about how his work can make an impact on the world.”

Lasting influence

While at WSU, Vest founded Cougs for Recovery, a support group for students struggling with any behavioral or chemical addiction. He also played an instrumental role campaigning for the passage of the 2018 Fair Chance in Higher Education Act, which prohibits Washington State institutes of higher education from inquiring about a student’s criminal history before that individual has been accepted for enrollment.

“When you take jobs or the ability to go to college away from someone, they aren’t going to be successful whether they have a criminal history or not,” Vest said. “My hope is that the work I’ve done at WSU will continue to play a role helping formerly incarcerated persons in Washington to turn their lives around.”

Next steps

This June, Vest will move to Palo Alto to begin working with Keith Humphries, professor of psychiatry at Stanford and one of the world’s foremost experts in the prevention and treatment of addictive disorders.

Vest said his hope is that his research will ultimately play a role in changing the U.S. justice system’s prevailing deficit-based approach to prison re-entry, where individuals are viewed as lacking appropriate skills or abilities, to a more strength or hope-based approach that focuses on reinforcing pre-existing qualities that can be nurtured to reinforce positive change.

“Eventually I would love to be able to recruit formerly incarcerated scholars to a research program,” Vest said. “There is a certain level of lived experience that really can never be learned in a book that enables you to see the picture more clearly and ask the right questions.”

A bill that would create a Washington Wine specialty license plate and direct funding to support research at ���سԹ� passed off the House Floor Wednesday afternoon with a vote of 86-9.

 would give Washington drivers the option of purchasing a special license plate featuring a landscape display of Washington’s wine regions. Proceeds – expected to be in the region of about $60,000 per year — would go to  to support research and collaboration with the  at ���سԹ�.  The bill now heads to the Senate for consideration.

Leading smoke exposure scientist will help wineries prepare for future wildfires

By Washington State Wine

SEATTLE – Wildfires bring devastation to land and property, and in wine growing regions the smoke can affect the quality of the crop.  The impact of this smoke exposure is the focus of the Washington Advancements in Viticulture and Enology (WAVEx) research seminar on April 17, 2019, in Richland, Washington.

Washington State Wine has funded research led by Washington State University’s Dr. Tom Collins, one of the nation’s leading smoke exposure scientists, since 2016. Collins developed a portable smoke hoop house to initiate smoking trials in WSU’s research vineyard so he could control when and the amount of smoke to the grapes. His project has studied the timing of exposure and the role of fuel source in smoke exposure. He is also working to develop analytical methods to accurately predict the potential for smoke exposure in wines and identify winemaking practices to mitigate smoke exposure.

Collins will review the current state of smoke exposure knowledge during the seminar and share the outcome of his first three years of study. The seminar will include tasting wines made from Collins’ smoke exposure timing trials, fuel source and mitigation through reverse osmosis.

The WAVEx seminar at the WSU-Tri-Cities campus is sponsored by Washington State Wine and WSU. WAVEx is a condensed version of the signature WAVE seminar. The purpose of WAVE is to raise awareness of Washington wine grape growers and wineries of industry-supported research, share research outcomes and encourage two-way communication between growers, vintners and scientists.

Pre-registration is required as seating is limited. Register: .

 

Media Contact:

Heather Bradshaw, Communications Director, 206 326-5752, hbradshaw@washingtonwine.org

By Maegan Murray, ���سԹ�

RICHLAND, Wash. – Students will highlight semester course projects, research and art as part of the fall Undergraduate Research Symposium and Art Exhibition on Dec. 11 and 13 at Washington State University Tri-Cities.

Members of the public are invited to attend as students present on their projects, which include the areas of history, political science, psychology, wine science, biology, fine art, English, mechanical engineering and environmental science.

Students will present posters of their research and course projects both days from noon – 1 p.m. in CIC 120. The art exhibition will be held from noon – 1 p.m. on Dec. 13, in the CIC Art Gallery.

“The Undergraduate Research Symposium and Art Exhibition provides our students with an excellent opportunity to practice communicating their research and course projects, which is an essential skill for when they go out into the professional environment,” said Allison Matthews, ���سԹ� clinical assistant professor of psychology. “We have a variety of great projects that will be on display.”

Some of the projects include:

• Research on plant-mycorrhizal fungal interactions
• Research on public health education programs for people who are at-risk for developing Type 2 diabetes
• An analysis of data from the Tri City Union Gospel Mission regarding client demographics, factors that influence homelessness and other related variables
• Investigating heat transfer on a surface subject to nanoparticle coating
• Nutrient limitation of algal and microbial biofilms in the Yakima Watershed
• The effect of pesticides on algal and microbial biofilms
• Cluster architecture and fruit composition as influenced by rachis tipping in wine grapes
• Title IX in regard to procedures on campus
• The Plastic Garden – a fine arts and engineering collaboration to construct a moving mechanical garden made of plastic and mechanical components

Media contacts:

Allison Matthews, ���سԹ� assistant professor of psychology, 509-372-7146, almatthews@wsu.edu

Maegan Murray, ���سԹ� public relations specialist, 509-372-7333, maegan_murray@wsu.edu

By Maegan Murray, ���سԹ�

RICHLAND, Wash. – Members of the public are invited to attend a presentation by Glenn Fink, a senior cyber security researcher at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, on the topic of the internet and its security and privacy risks at 6 p.m. on Tuesday, Nov. 6, in the East Auditorium at Washington State University Tri-Cities.

His presentation, titled “The Internet of Things: A Security and Privacy Perspective,” will focus specifically on the issues that society faces in terms of the internet, the way forward for solutions from research and legislation and what people can do to protect themselves and their family from runaway security and privacy risks.

Fink said devices, ranging from television sets that spy on people to remotely hacked vehicles, all pose different risks and pose different issues that affect everyone in society.

“This presentation presents a real opportunity for those to learn more about how cyber security impacts our daily life, as well as the risks that are associated with different devices and platforms,” said Mohamed Osman, ���سԹ� professor of electrical engineering. “We are thrilled to have Dr. Fink present on our campus on this important topic.”

Fink has worked in areas including computer security, visualization, bio-inspired software design and human-centric computing at PNNL since 2006. He is a lateral thinker who excels in visionary leadership of multidisciplinary teams.

He was the project lead and primary inventor of several technologies including PNNL’s Digital Ants technology, which earned an award for Excellence in Technology Transfer from the Federal Laboratory Consortium in 2018.

The presentation is sponsored by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Computer Society.

For more information, contact Tish Christman at tish.christman@wsu.edu.

 

Media contacts:

Mohamed Osman, ���سԹ� professor of electrical engineering, 509-372-7287, osman@wsu.edu

Tish Christman, ���سԹ� School of Engineering and Applied Sciences administrative assistant, 509-372-7683, tish.christman@wsu.edu

Maegan Murray, ���سԹ� public relations specialist, 509-372-7333, maegan_murray@wsu.edu

By Brian Charles Clark, Washington State Magazine

As microscopic particles and liquid droplets ooze and eddy through the vineyard, grapes are coated with toxic chemicals. Worse, smoke from forest and range fires manages to get into the plant itself, wreaking havoc with the plant’s internal chemistry.

In self-defense, grape vines attempt to sequester toxic smoke particles that infiltrate berries and leaves by binding sugar molecules to the offending invaders. The plant can then metabolically shuffle the sugar-trapped particles into places where the smoke won’t be as harmful to the vines’ mission: produce grapes and reproduce.

Humans interfere with the vines’ mission when we harvest grapes for wine. Making wine from smoke-tainted grapes, though, is a frustrating enterprise. According to the Washington State University wine science team, smoke-tainted wines are in danger of developing “unpleasantly ‘pharmaceutical,’ ‘dirty,’ ‘ash tray,’ ‘medicinal,’ ‘camp fire,’ or ‘burnt’” flavors and, to add insult to injury, the taint compounds “reduce the perception of varietal fruit aroma.”

The tainting compounds can’t be washed off. With much less overall skin contact, the juice from white grapes can be quickly extracted and clarified. But, to get the color right, red wines are made with prolonged contact with skins, so taint compounds are a permanent part of the wine.

Filtering and fining techniques have been used to try to clear the juice of offending chemicals but, as Tom Collins, a wine chemist based at ���سԹ�, says, the problem is much deeper. Sugar-sequestered smoke particles are very similar to other desirable compounds. Filtering techniques, such as reverse osmosis, remove both the good and the bad compounds, resulting in a wine that Collins charitably describes as “neutral.” This bland concoction could be blended with unaffected wines to produce something consumable but, even then, trouble lurks.

Over time, the acidity of bottled wine cleaves the sugar from the particle, releasing a new wave of off-flavors and aromas.

Collins points out that not much is really known about smoke taint — except that it tastes nasty and can have a negative impact on the bottom lines of both growers and winemakers.

Collins and his team are engaged in an ongoing project that seeks to answer several big questions: How much smoke exposure, and at what period in grape development, is too much? And what can be done to clean up tainted fruit so that it can be used to make a useful product?

Collins and colleagues have constructed an in-vineyard method of controlling and testing smoke exposure, with the aim of answering the first question. And the second, he suggests, might lie in spit.

Since the enzymes in our saliva can cleave sugars entrapping smoke particles, perhaps a process could be developed using similar, non-saliva derived enzymes to liberate the sugars from the smoke particles, which then might be filtered out by one means or
another.

Research-wise, it’s early days — but the pressure is on. Fires in Australia, California, and Washington state threaten a beloved industry and there is much interest in finding ways to salvage fine wines from tainted grapes.