Project Grant R43GM133224

This National Science Foundation Project Grant of $100,000 supports research into polyelectrolyte multilayered surfaces for use in human mesenchymal stem/stromal cell manufacturing. The goal is to develop a scalable and controllable polymeric coating composed of natural polymers to improve the cell expansion process used in producing therapeutic human mesenchymal stromal cells. The coating is constructed via layer-by-layer assembly of collagen and heparin and has been shown to increase cell...

This $568,264 Project Grant (R41HL178144) from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI), under the Cardiovascular Diseases Research program (CFDA 93.837), supports the manufacturing of designer red blood cells (RBCs) derived from induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs). The primary goal is to develop a scalable, cost-efficient bioprocess to produce these specialized RBCs, which can be used as reagents to identify rare antibodies in patients requiring blood transfusions,...

This federal Project Grant award from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI), under the Cardiovascular Diseases Research program (CFDA 93.837), provides $590,283 to the University of Wisconsin-Madison to develop robust, closed-loop manufacturing processes for producing human pluripotent stem cell-derived cardiomyocytes. The overarching goal is to improve the reproducibility and scalability of cardiomyocyte differentiation through integrated single-cell transcriptomic and...

This federal Project Grant award from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) under the Cardiovascular Diseases Research program (CFDA 93.837) provides $275,396 to Link Biosystems Inc., a self-certified small disadvantaged business, to develop bioreactor technologies for efficient differentiation, scale-up, and maturation of induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC)-derived cardiomyocytes. The research aims to address challenges in producing clinically relevant quantities of...

The National Cancer Institute has awarded a $275,627 Project Grant to Link Biosystems Inc., a self-certified small disadvantaged business and for-profit organization, to develop the ONXPANSION bioreactor workflow. This workflow aims to enable efficient expansion of patient-derived induced pluripotent stem cells into clinically relevant cell doses to support autologous cell therapy applications. The grant supports efforts to de-risk the utility of Link Biosystems' bioreactor technology for...

The National Science Foundation awarded Opera Bioscience, Inc. $275,000 under the Technology, Innovation, and Partnerships program (CFDA 47.084) to develop a low-cost bacterial production platform for manufacturing high purity recombinant proteins and growth factors. The award period runs from June 15, 2023 through May 31, 2024. Opera Bioscience will utilize this funding to demonstrate the ability of its innovative protein production platform to solve challenges in traditionally costly and...

Rattan Life Science Inc. received a $275,000 Project Grant award from the National Science Foundation under the NSF Technology, Innovation, and Partnerships program (CFDA 47.084) to develop a platform for generating induced pluripotent stem cell-derived naïve CD4+ and CD8+ T cells with fidelity, reproducibility and scalability. The platform employs proprietary induced thymic epithelial cells to provide biologically relevant thymic positive selection signals during T cell differentiation,...

Partillion Bioscience Corp. was awarded a $659,037 Project Grant from the National Institutes of Health's National Institute of General Medical Sciences to develop reagent products enabling high-throughput screening and selection of single cells based on secreted bio-products. Under the Biomedical Research and Research Training program (CFDA 93.859), Partillion plans to transition its lab-on-a-particle technology—highlighted as a 2020 SLAS Innovation Award winner—into the first reagent product...

This $500,000 Project Grant from the National Science Foundation Division of Molecular and Cellular Biosciences, under the Biological Sciences federal grant program (CFDA 47.074), will support research to develop an end-to-end continuous manufacturing process for cell therapies using robotics and microfluidic technologies. The Georgia Tech Research Corporation will receive funding to create a more integrated workflow based on microfluidic device-enabled genetic engineering, cell expansion, and...

This $250,000 National Science Foundation Technology, Innovation, and Partnerships Project Grant supports the development of artificial substrates for growing human stem cells suitable for clinical applications at Oakland University from March 2023 to February 2025. The goal is to accelerate the potential benefits of using human pluripotent stem cells and their derivatives for treating and curing diseases by producing a synthetic substrate that supports growth of human pluripotent stem cells...