Project Grant 2132141

The National Science Foundation Office of Emerging Frontiers and Multidisciplinary Activities awarded a $2 million Project Grant under the Engineering (47.041) federal grant program to The Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania. The four-year award beginning September 2021 will support research into Distributed Ribonucleic Acid (RNA) Manufacturing via Continuous Enzymatic Reaction and Separation in Biphasic Liquid Media. Sub-awards were provided to the University of Oklahoma, University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center, the University of Colorado, and Drexel University to collaborate on developing new techniques for continuous enzymatic RNA production and purification in a biphasic liquid system aimed at more efficient manufacturing processes. The Engineering program seeks to foster innovation in engineering research, and this award advances those goals through distributed research on RNA manufacturing technologies across multiple academic institutions.