Project Grant R44AI155213

This federal Project Grant award from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS) Biomedical Research and Research Training Program (CFDA 93.859) provides $986,651 to Auragent Bioscience LLC (doing business as Brightest Bio) to develop an ultrabright fluorescent reagent called a Plasmonic Fluor (PF). The PF technology is designed to significantly enhance the detection sensitivity of fluorescent Western blot assays, enabling more precise protein concentration measurements and...

The National Science Foundation (NSF) Division of Chemical, Bioengineering, Environmental, and Transport Systems awarded a 3-year, $450,000 Project Grant to The Washington University to develop a novel "Plasmon-Enhanced Expansion Fluorospot" (PEEFS) technology. This bioplasmonic imaging method combines fluorescent nanoparticles and expansion microscopy to enable highly sensitive and high-resolution monitoring of cell-secreted proteins at the single-cell level. Key project objectives...

This $275,000 Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I award from the National Science Foundation (NSF) Technology, Innovation, and Partnerships (TIP) program supports the development of a label-free, high-resolution, high-throughput protein screening platform called Vibrational Spectroscopy with Metasurface Optics (VISMO). The technology aims to enable simultaneous, minute-scale measurement of millions of protein samples, which would dramatically improve the lengthy and costly cycles...

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 Project Grant award from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS) under CFDA 93.859 Biomedical Research and Research Training program provides $306,860 to Mixedlcmedia LLC, a small disadvantaged business, to develop and evaluate a prototype ultra-low flow liquid chromatography platform based on their proprietary porous layer open-tubular (PLOT) and monolithic nanocolumn technologies. The goal is to create a commercialization-ready LC system that enables deep proteomic...

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 $295,561 to Biosensing Instrument Inc. to develop a commercial prototype of their Plasmonic Scattering Microscopy (PSM) technology. The PSM system aims to enable high-throughput, label-free quantification of membrane protein binding kinetics on single cells in their native cellular microenvironment. This represents a...

This Project Grant award of $1,249,099 from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Trans-NIH Research Support program (CFDA 93.310) supports the development of a new class of small, bright, tunable, and biocompatible near-infrared (NIR-II) fluorescent probes for deep tissue molecular imaging. The University of California, Irvine (UC Irvine) will create a palette of DNA-stabilized silver nanoclusters (AgN-DNA) that emit in the NIR-II tissue transparency window (1,000-1,700 nm). These new...

This Project Grant award, provided by the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS) under the Biomedical Research and Research Training program (CFDA 93.859), is funding the development of novel signal amplification technologies by Molecular Instruments, Inc. to enable automated, ultrasensitive, and multiplex imaging of RNA and protein expression in biological samples. The $1,099,625 award supports the engineering of two key capabilities: 1) a chromogenic signal amplification...

This $305,000 National Science Foundation (NSF) SBIR Phase I project grant, awarded on March 1, 2025, aims to develop a compact, multi-color super-resolution imaging system capable of visualizing molecular structures in thick biological tissues with nanoscale precision. The project addresses limitations of existing imaging technologies by incorporating advanced features such as adaptive optics and spinning disk technology to minimize optical aberrations and scattering. The research objectives...

This National Science Foundation (NSF) Biological Sciences program (CFDA 47.074) Project Grant award of $730,000 to the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) aims to transform the field of protein engineering through the development of an innovative technology called PicnnnShells. PicnnnShells are tiny, hollow particles that can rapidly screen up to one million different protein variations in a single day to identify useful proteins for research, industrial or medical applications. The...