Federal Project Grant Award Summary

CAL State LA University Auxiliary Services Inc. received $199,868 in funding from the National Science Foundation's Division of Chemical, Bioengineering, Environmental, and Transport Systems under the Engineering program (CFDA 47.041) for an Engineering Research Initiation (ERI) grant awarded May 1, 2026, with completion targeted for April 30, 2028. The project delivers a multimodal embedding framework and computational workflow designed to accelerate the discovery and development of antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) as alternatives to traditional antibiotics in addressing antibiotic-resistant pathogens. The primary technical deliverable is an advanced artificial intelligence-based classification system that combines sequence embeddings from pre-trained peptide language models with structural and physicochemical property data, implementing positive-unlabeled learning methodology to improve prediction accuracy by treating untested peptide sequences appropriately rather than as negative examples.

Beyond the core computational framework, the award supports educational and workforce development outcomes through training of undergraduate students in artificial intelligence methodologies, contributing to the development of a skilled scientific workforce capable of addressing public health challenges related to drug-resistant infections. The project's analytical components include geometry analysis of peptide space to identify underexplored regions, with the ultimate goal of producing identified candidate antimicrobial peptides suitable for further experimental validation and development. This research addresses critical national priorities in biotechnology and computational innovation while serving California State University, Los Angeles' mission as a minority-serving and Hispanic-Serving Institution.