Project Grant 1722376

Berkeley Fermentation Science Inc., doing business as Berkeley Brewing Science, was awarded a $100,000 Project Grant from the United States Department of Agriculture National Institute of Food and Agriculture under the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Program/Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Program. The grant funds research to engineer Saccharomyces cerevisiae yeast for increased biotransformation and production of tropical flavors from agricultural products. The SBIR/STTR...

This SBIR Phase I project, awarded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) under the Technology, Innovation, and Partnerships (TIP) program (CFDA 47.084), aims to develop a novel platform for accelerating the strain development process for precision fermentation. The $275,000 grant, awarded on January 15, 2025, will fund the recipient, Terraferma Foods, Inc., to leverage machine learning and experimental biology to enhance the industrial-scale production of animal proteins in yeast. The project...

This $350,000 project grant awarded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) Engineering program (CFDA 47.041) aims to develop a yeast strain with a robust protein secretion system that is tolerant to extreme pH and temperature levels. The primary objectives are to engineer the secretory pathway of the yeast Kluyveromyces marxianus using gene editing tools such as CRISPR, identify critical genes influencing protein production and secretion, and develop effective CRISPR libraries and selection...

Via Biofuels Inc. received a $175,000 Project Grant award on September 1, 2025, from the Institute of Bioenergy, Climate, and Environment under the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Program / Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Program (CFDA 10.212), administered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA). The project, scheduled for completion by April 30, 2026, focuses on developing a genetically engineered yeast strain capable of...

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...

Project Grant Summary: In-Fermenter Cell Datastreams The National Science Foundation (NSF) Division of Chemical, Bioengineering, Environmental, and Transport Systems awarded Trustees of Boston University $449,999 on November 1, 2025, to develop a novel class of wireless, free-floating biosensors for real-time monitoring of microbial fermentation processes. The primary deliverable is an integrated sensing platform that combines miniaturized complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS)-based...

The National Science Foundation awarded a $422,834 Project Grant to the University of California Irvine under the Engineering federal grant program (CFDA 47.041) for research titled "Collaborative Research: Data-Driven Engineering of the Thermotolerant Yeast Kluyveromyces Marxianus." The three-year project period runs from October 1, 2022 to September 30, 2025. The award will support applying machine learning and deep learning techniques to metabolic engineering of yeast for...

The National Science Foundation Division of Chemical, Bioengineering, Environmental, and Transport Systems awarded a $400,000 Project Grant to the Regents of the University of California at Riverside under the Engineering (47.041) federal grant program. The three-year award will support collaborative research using machine learning and synthetic biology approaches to engineer the thermotolerant yeast Kluyveromyces marxianus to maximize production of malonyl-coA, a key precursor to polyketides....

This $275,000 Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I award from the National Science Foundation (NSF) Technology, Innovation, and Partnerships (TIP) program supports the development of a label-free, high-resolution, high-throughput protein screening platform called Vibrational Spectroscopy with Metasurface Optics (VISMO). The technology aims to enable simultaneous, minute-scale measurement of millions of protein samples, which would dramatically improve the lengthy and costly cycles...

The National Science Foundation (NSF) awarded a $274,980 SBIR Phase I Project Grant to Cisterna Biologics, Inc. to develop a novel platform for cost-efficient mRNA production in yeast. The project aims to transform yeast cells into efficient mRNA factories and utilize advanced chromatographic techniques for purification, with the goal of reducing mRNA manufacturing costs by 90% compared to current in vitro transcription methods. Key technical objectives include demonstrating stable mRNA fusion...