Project Grant R41AI141060

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 U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA) National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) awarded a $179,086 Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Program / Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Program grant (CFDA 10.212) to Seedling Biosystems Inc. on Sep 15, 2025. The project aims to develop a sustainable approach to produce small molecule and protein ingredients, such as squalene, using soybeans through a proprietary "precision germination" method. This innovation seeks...

Washington State University will utilize a $650,000 Project Grant award from the United States Department of Agriculture's National Institute of Food and Agriculture to develop Physaria fendleri as a domestic source of hydroxy fatty acids. Through the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative competitive grants program, the university will elucidate Physaria fendleri's efficient mechanisms for accumulating hydroxy fatty acids over three years using functional genomics and gene editing techniques....

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 Project Grant from the National Science Foundation's Technology, Innovation, and Partnerships program totaling $256,000 will develop Recombinant BCG as a novel immunoadjuvant for viral infections. The awardee, Oncosting LLC located in Baltimore, Maryland, will optimize media and lyophilization manufacturing of BCG-STING, evaluate its immunological effects as an adjuvant for H1N1 influenza vaccination, and assess its protective effects as an H1N1 vaccine adjuvant. By adding stimulator of...

This three-year $1.28 million project grant from the National Science Foundation's Biological Sciences program (CFDA 47.074) supports research at Washington State University to develop a quantitative understanding of lipid metabolic network structure, fluxes, and sub-cellular spatial organization in plant seeds. The goal is to elucidate how plants balance oil accumulation with membrane lipid synthesis to optimize seed oil production without affecting membrane properties. The project will...

Upstream Biotechnology Inc. received a $994,582 cooperative agreement award from the National Science Foundation under the NSF Technology, Innovation, and Partnerships program (CFDA 47.084) to develop a novel genetic trait for broad-spectrum disease resistance in soybean without fitness costs. The award will support engineering soybean plants to rapidly respond to attacking pathogens through a system that regulates the production of anti-microbial proteins only when needed, eliminating...

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 $315,000 Project Grant awarded by the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS) under the Biomedical Research and Research Training program (CFDA 93.859) is supporting the development of chemoenzymatic methods and reagents to produce affordable glycosphingolipids (GSLs), a class of lipids with complex carbohydrate structures that are ubiquitous in cell membranes. The key objectives are to: 1) expand the inventory of commercially available recombinant glycosyltransferase enzymes...

The federal Project Grant award from the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS), part of the 93.350 CFDA program, will support the development of a novel biosensor for the detection of bacterial endotoxins. Through this $290,066 award, the awardee Monod Bio, Inc. will focus on (I) computational design and experimental selection of functional lipopolysaccharide (LPS) bioluminescent biosensors, (II) in vitro evolution of these biosensors to optimize sensitivity and stability,...