Cooperative Agreement FC2604NT15521

This two-year, $200,000 Project Grant from the National Science Foundation's Division of Chemical, Bioengineering, Environmental, and Transport Systems will fund research at the Long Beach Research Foundation to develop multi-activity proteins for improved carbohydrate deconstruction. Specifically, the Foundation will produce and test 85 engineered multi-activity proteins containing two catalytic domains each. These proteins aim to increase biomass conversion for alternative fuels and...

This three-year Project Grant from the National Science Foundation's Division of Chemical, Bioengineering, Environmental, and Transport Systems will support the development of new green-chemical catalysts based on Rieske dioxygenase scaffolds through directed evolution at Ball State University. Totaling $366,434, the award aims to evolve previously uncharacterized dioxygenases found in soil bacteria to expand their substrate ranges for valuable applications in organic synthesis and...

This SBIR Phase I award from the National Science Foundation (NSF) under the Technology, Innovation, and Partnerships (TIP) program (CFDA 47.084) provides $275,000 to Caravel Bio, Inc. to develop a novel synthetic biology platform for high-throughput directed evolution of spore-displayed enzymes. The project aims to create customizable enzyme solutions for industrial biocatalyst applications by improving key properties like enzyme activity, stability, and loading density. The technology uses a...

This National Science Foundation (NSF) Engineering program (CFDA 47.041) Project Grant of $545,000 awarded May 15, 2025, supports research to enhance recombinant protein production in Komagataella pastoris (Pichia pastoris), a food-safe yeast widely utilized in biomanufacturing and biological research. The research will deliver scientific outcomes demonstrating how codon usage patterns can be exploited to maximize recombinant protein expression while simultaneously preserving host cellular...

This Project Grant award from the National Science Foundation (NSF) Biological Sciences program (CFDA 47.074) provides $900,000 to Northeastern University to develop a novel bioreactor system for studying microbial communities. The project, titled "Synthetic Ecology of Mixed Aerobic/Anaerobic Microbial Consortia", aims to create a low-cost, scalable bioreactor platform that can precisely control the atmospheric gas composition across parallel microbial cultures. This system will enable...

This National Science Foundation (NSF) Biological Sciences program (CFDA 47.074) Project Grant award of $730,000 to the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) aims to transform the field of protein engineering through the development of an innovative technology called PicnnnShells. PicnnnShells are tiny, hollow particles that can rapidly screen up to one million different protein variations in a single day to identify useful proteins for research, industrial or medical applications. The...

This $1,373,044 project grant from the National Science Foundation's Biological Sciences program (CFDA 47.074) supports research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to develop microbial strains with minimal genomes for integrated bioprocessing using supercritical carbon dioxide. The goal is to elucidate the genotype-phenotype relationship of tolerance to supercritical CO2 for a selected microorganism and construct a reduced genome strain displaying the desired tolerance phenotype....

The National Science Foundation awarded a $716,898 Project Grant to the University of North Texas under the Biological Sciences federal grant program (CFDA 47.074) to develop advanced biocatalyst tools and resources to enable biogas-based biomanufacturing from August 15, 2022 to July 31, 2025. Specifically, the University of North Texas will utilize genetic engineering and metabolic modeling to advance methanotroph-based biotechnologies for the sequestration and utilization of methane and carbon...

Via Biofuels Inc. received a $175,000 Project Grant from the Institute of Bioenergy, Climate, and Environment under the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Program (CFDA 10.212) effective September 1, 2025, with a completion date of April 30, 2026. The award supports development of a genetically engineered yeast strain capable of converting lactose from whey permeate—a dairy industry waste product—into 3-methylanisole (3-MA), a versatile molecule suitable as a gasoline replacement and...

This National Science Foundation (NSF) Engineering program (CFDA 47.041) award of $150,000 to The Trustees of Columbia University in the City of New York provides funding for a collaborative research project to investigate using hydrogen peroxide, a cellular waste product, as an alternative energy source for efficient biofuel and biochemical production. The key objectives of the project are to: 1) develop an E. coli strain platform to control and monitor hydrogen peroxide production, 2) create...