Additive Manufacturing Bottleneck Solved
Fabricating objects with suspended, overhanging, or disconnected features, such as a free-rolling ball in a cage, poses a challenge in additive manufacturing (AM) without temporary scaffolding to support features during the printing process. Scaffolding adds time and waste to the print job, and removing it postproduction may damage intricate components.
Collaborators from Lawrence Livermore and the University of California at Santa Barbara have added a new option to the 3D-printing toolkit for solving this problem by using a contrasting, visible light to build scaffolding that dissolves after production. Research published in the journal ACS Central Science on June 4, 2025, describes the use of ultraviolet (UV) and visible wavelengths simultaneously to yield permanent structures and temporary supports from a single resin. Specifically, a dual-wavelength, negative-imaging, digital light-processing (DLP) printer with a single digital micromirror device projects UV and visible light at the same time to trigger different chemical reactions. The UV solidifies the final epoxy structure, while the visible light cures a degradable thermoset that dissolves after printing, leaving no residue or damage. For the publication, the research team demonstrated interlocking rings and an encaged ball.
Livermore principal investigator Maxim Shusteff observes, “Dissolving a sacrificial material is much more automation-compatible and less cumbersome than manually removing supports.” In addition to cutting time and waste in print jobs, this advance increases resolution and expands possibilities in multimaterial AM and DLP 3D-printing technologies.
Contact: Maxim Shusteff (925) 423-0733 (shusteff1 [at] llnl.gov (shusteff1[at]llnl[dot]gov)).
Tumor Control Sans Side Effects
A new cancer-drug candidate shows remarkable promise in blocking tumor growth without triggering high blood sugar. BBO-10203, a compound developed by Lawrence Livermore, BridgeBio Oncology Therapeutics, and the Frederick National Laboratory for Cancer Research (FNLCR), disrupts two cancer-driving proteins, RAS and PI3Kα, without causing hyperglycemia, a side effect common in other treatments. The team’s findings were published in the June 12, 2025, issue of the journal Science.
The rapid design and development of BBO-10203 applies Department of Energy supercomputing, AI, and machine learning to drug discovery. The team ran FNLCR’s early compounds and insights on 50 crystal structures through the Livermore Computer-Aided Drug Design platform (LCADD), which predicts how a potential drug will behave when synthesized. LCADD iteratively refined the early compounds for potency, selectivity, and pharmacokinetics, evolving toward the therapeutic candidate, BBO-10203, and laying the foundation for pharmaceutical development. In labratory tests and animal models, BBO-10203 slowed tumor growth in HER2-positive, PIK3CA-mutated, and KRAS-driven cancers and improved therapies for breast, lung, and colorectal cancers, suggesting the potential to upgrade standard treatments.
As clinical data emerges, BBO-10203 is resetting the bar for PI3Kα pathway inhibitors and pioneering a new class of nontoxic cancer therapeutics. Laboratory Biochemical and Biophysical Systems group leader Felice Lightstone says, “We’ve built a powerful platform for drug design, and we’re just getting started.”
Contact: Felice Lightstone (925) 423-8657 (lightstone1 [at] llnl.gov (lightstone1[at]llnl[dot]gov)).
Accelerating Alloy Development
Possibilities in alloy development expand exponentially with each added process or compositional variable, reaching perhaps quintillions of options. Materials scientists and engineers at Lawrence Livermore, in collaboration with Cornell University, are building an autonomous alloy prediction and experimentation (APEX) platform that will accelerate the design, printing, grinding, polishing, and characterization of new alloys by years—even decades.
APEX introduces a novel approach to materials discovery by combining robotics and machine learning to navigate the vast universe of possibilities. After melting and fusing metal powders onto a substrate via directed-energy deposition, APEX grinds and polishes each sample, then performs characterization tests such as microscopic examination and mechanical indentation for hardness. Data is collected at every phase to provide a rich history of each alloy. In the future, APEX will integrate this data in a platform that connects models to continually optimize subsequent experiments within a campaign, combining physics-based modeling with machine learning.
Planned for completion in 2027, APEX is extensible, inviting easy adaptation to emerging challenges and incorporating new characterization and diagnostic capabilities as they come available. Livermore principal investigator Mason Sage explains, “Our end goal is to make APEX the first self-driving laboratory for alloy discovery at Lawrence Livermore capable of working around the clock to collect experimental data and autonomously design, build, and test novel alloys.”
Contact: Mason Sage (sage6 [at] llnl.gov (sage6[at]llnl[dot]gov)).
