Cooperative Agreement W81XWH1020082

This Project Grant from the National Science Foundation's Division of Chemical, Bioengineering, Environmental, and Transport Systems provides $500,000 to the Regents of the University of California at Riverside for research on rapid biomanufacturing of mRNA vaccines in plant chloroplasts. The award period is from January 1, 2022 to December 31, 2023. The research is funded under the NSF Directorate for Engineering's 47.041 CFDA program, which aims to improve quality of life and economic strength...

This federal Project Grant award from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS) under CFDA 93.859 Biomedical Research and Research Training Program provides $599,409 to Opera Bioscience, Inc. to develop a novel protein expression system based on the Type III Secretion System of Salmonella enterica Typhimurium. The goal is to produce cost-effective recombinant proteins and growth factors to support therapeutic cell culture applications. The key products/services to be delivered...

This Project Grant award from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases supports the development of a novel plant-based source for squalene as a natural vaccine adjuvant. The $514,006 award to Synshark LLC supports research to engineer tobacco plants to stably produce and accumulate squalene on their leaves. This work directly relates to the commercialization plan to provide a non-animal, indoor grown natural adjuvant for vaccines. Currently, squalene used in vaccines is...

The National Science Foundation's Office of International Science and Engineering (CFDA 47.079) awarded a $350,000 Project Grant to the University of California, Davis (UC Davis) for the "Engineered Plants in Culture (EPIC) - Biomanufacturing in Low Resource Environments" project. The goal of this 4-year effort is to develop small-scale, self-sufficient biomanufacturing processes using engineered plant cells, plant embryos, and fast-growing aquatic plants as production platforms. The...

This Project Grant award from the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Technology, Innovation, and Partnerships program (CFDA 47.084) provides $275,000 to Targeting Systems to develop a novel intramuscular gene delivery platform capable of sustained expression and endogenous secretion of bispecific natural killer cell engager (BIKE) therapeutics to treat solid tumors like hepatocellular carcinoma. The platform aims to deliver BIKEs in a less invasive manner than current immunotherapies,...

This $350,000 Project Grant award from the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS), under the 93.350 CFDA program, supports the development of the Codomax EPI-MAX platform. This integrated omics and computational technology leverages cellular stress responses to enhance the production of difficult-to-express therapeutic proteins, with a focus on improving secretion and preventing aggregation in the Pichia pastoris expression system. The key products or services to be...

This Project Grant award from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS) Biomedical Research and Research Training Program (CFDA 93.859) aims to develop novel non-viral gene delivery methods that are less expensive and safer than current lentiviral approaches, while achieving comparable levels of transgene expression. The $364,167 award to Villanova University will fund collaborative research efforts across three main objectives: 1) developing polymeric gene delivery vehicles...

The National Science Foundation awarded Opera Bioscience, Inc. $275,000 under the Technology, Innovation, and Partnerships program (CFDA 47.084) to develop a low-cost bacterial production platform for manufacturing high purity recombinant proteins and growth factors. The award period runs from June 15, 2023 through May 31, 2024. Opera Bioscience will utilize this funding to demonstrate the ability of its innovative protein production platform to solve challenges in traditionally costly and...

This Project Grant award from the National Science Foundation (NSF) under its Technology, Innovation, and Partnerships (TIP) program (CFDA 47.084) provides $275,000 to Tectaria Bio LLC to engineer cell lines with activated proteasomes for increased biomanufacturing efficiency. The project aims to test the feasibility and application of a novel technology to significantly increase the protein production capabilities of cell lines used in the manufacture of biologics, gene therapies, and vaccines....

This Project Grant award from the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Biological Sciences program provides $500,000 from March 2024 through February 2027 to researchers at the University of Maryland and Silvec Biologics, Inc. to develop methods to stabilize RNA genomes in viruses that can be used as therapies to treat plant diseases. The project aims to use computational approaches, including artificial intelligence, to design RNA structures that can be inserted into virus genomes to increase...