Project Grant FA23862414057

This $228,697 National Science Foundation award under the Engineering program (CFDA 47.041) will support the development of an optical biosensor technology to facilitate drug screening and validation efforts. Auctus Biologics, Inc. will utilize a proprietary temperature, pH, and chemically stable protein composed of two fragments that bind with antibody-like affinity and specificity. Over the one-year period ending January 2023, the company will establish the technology's suitability for...

The National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS), under the Biomedical Research and Research Training federal grant program (CFDA 93.859), awarded a $306,872 Project Grant to Fluid Discovery, Inc. to develop a "Universal Platform for Ultrahigh-Throughput Biocatalyst Evolution with Micro-Mass Spectrometry." This transformative technology aims to enable high-throughput screening and optimization of genetically engineered enzymes and metabolic pathways, supporting innovation...

This Project Grant award of $340,000 from the National Science Foundation's Engineering program (CFDA 47.041) supports research by Arizona State University (ASU) to investigate how the atomic structure of amorphous metal catalysts impacts their performance for the hydrogenation of carbon dioxide. The goal is to uncover the structure-activity relationships that enable amorphous catalysts to more effectively convert carbon dioxide and water into fuels compared to traditional crystalline metal...

This $245,300 Project Grant awarded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) under the Technology, Innovation, and Partnerships (CFDA 47.084) program aims to use synthetic biology methods to improve the production of volatile organic chemicals, primarily ethanol and acetone, by a hyperthermophile microbe. The project seeks to engineer a high-temperature microbe strain that can be feasibly used for large-scale biomanufacturing. Successful implementation of this technology has the potential to...

This Project Grant award, funded by the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS) under the Biomedical Research and Research Training program (CFDA 93.859), supports a data-driven approach to engineering the aminotransferase enzyme ARO8. The $222,708 award aims to develop computational methods to predict optimal mutations that enhance the enzyme's selectivity towards unnatural substrates, enabling the expansion of biocatalytic pathways for pharmaceutical production. The research...

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 Project Grant award of $275,000.00 from the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Technology, Innovation, and Partnerships (CFDA 47.084) program, supports the development of a novel platform to accelerate strain development for precision fermentation. The goal is to create an alternative means of food protein production to reduce the environmental impact of traditional livestock farming. The platform leverages machine learning and experimental biology to enable high-yield production of a...

This Project Grant award from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS), under the Biomedical Research and Research Training program (CFDA 93.859), provides $224,088 to The Leland Stanford Junior University to develop a high-throughput microfluidic platform for parallel expression, purification, and quantitative assay of over 1,000 non-canonical amino acid (NCAA)-containing protein variants. The goal is to enable routine collection of over 10,000 biochemical measurements on...

This National Science Foundation (NSF) Project Grant award for $380,074, awarded on September 1, 2024, aims to develop a platform for instrument-free, easy-to-interpret quantitative analysis of molecular biomarkers. The project will produce a general methodology adaptable to a range of molecular targets, including potential new agents. The key products to be delivered include: A "yes/no" output for quantitative measurement, enabled through stoichiometry and negative cooperativity-based...

This National Science Foundation (NSF) Technology, Innovation, and Partnerships (CFDA 47.084) Project Grant award of $275,000 to Om Therapeutics Inc. will support the development of a system to enable the rapid, scalable, and cost-effective discovery of new medicines using machine learning. The project aims to encapsulate proteins and small molecules in millions of miniaturized compartments to screen for interactions that could identify novel drug candidates. The key innovations include...