Project Grant W911NF1710341

This three-year, $2,050,512 National Science Foundation project grant supports research to develop genome transplantation techniques for non-mycoplasma bacteria species. The goal is to remove technical barriers limiting the construction of synthetic cells and establish rules for transplanting isolated synthetic bacterial genomes to produce cells with designed properties. The J. Craig Venter Institute will investigate the mechanism of genome transplantation, develop the technique for at least two...

This five-year $385,645 Project Grant from the National Science Foundation's Biological Sciences program (CFDA 47.074) will fund research investigating RNA-guided nucleases encoded by transposons across the three domains of life. The grantee, Columbia University, will examine an ancestral family of transposon-encoded enzymes that use guide RNAs to target and cut matching DNA sequences. These enzymes are directly related to CRISPR-Cas9 and CRISPR-Cas12 genome editing tools. The project aims to...

This Project Grant from the National Science Foundation Division of Chemical, Bioengineering, Environmental, and Transport Systems provides $474,861 to North Carolina State University under the Engineering program (CFDA 47.041) from January 15, 2023 to December 31, 2027. The award will fund research to develop strategies for improving the ability of genetically engineered probiotic yeast to reside long-term in the gut, with the goal of enabling in situ biomanufacturing of therapeutic agents to...

This three-year, $1.8 million project grant from the National Science Foundation Division of Integrative Organismal Systems aims to develop rapid transformation and gene editing techniques in maize through the Biological Sciences program (CFDA 47.074). The University of Missouri System will work to establish a system for precisely inserting transgenes and editing genes at predetermined sites in the genome of maize. Researchers will create "landing pads" on five chromosomes of a...

This $842,151 Project Grant award from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS) Biomedical Research and Research Training Program (CFDA 93.859) supports the development of an improved, low-endotoxin E. coli strain for the production of biological products such as recombinant proteins and plasmid DNA. The awardee, Scarab Genomics LLC, a biotechnology company in Madison, Wisconsin, will use genetic engineering techniques to substantially lower the level of contaminating endotoxin...

This Project Grant from the National Science Foundation's Division of Molecular and Cellular Biosciences, under the Biological Sciences program (CFDA 47.074), provides $2,082,834 to The Ohio State University for research on bacterial genome engineering mechanisms. The university will study the interactions between the Red-Beta recombinase enzyme and single-stranded DNA binding protein in bacteria, using x-ray crystallography and cryo-electron microscopy to determine the three-dimensional...

This Project Grant award for $1,000,000 from the National Science Foundation (NSF) Biological Sciences program (CFDA 47.074) aims to develop a polyketide-based platform to produce a range of non-canonical amino acids (NCAAs) and demonstrate their incorporation into proteins expressed by the bacterium Bacillus subtilis. The key objectives of the 3-year project are to: 1) engineer a polyketide synthase (PKS) system to produce threonine and evolve it for increased productivity; 2) utilize...

This Project Grant award from the National Science Foundation (NSF) under the Biological Sciences program (CFDA 47.074) provides $369,297 to San Francisco State University (SFSU) to develop a synthetic transhydrogenation module to enhance the production of valuable chemicals using engineered organisms. The key objectives are to: Elucidate the structural mechanisms underlying the autoregulation of the GltAB-GudB enzyme complex in Bacillus subtilis, which regulates glutamate metabolism and impacts...

This Project Grant award from the National Science Foundation (NSF) Biological Sciences program (CFDA 47.074) provides $300,000 to the University of Texas at Austin to research the use of non-canonical genetic alphabets and codes to expand genetic capabilities in synthetic cells. The 3-year project (9/1/2024 - 8/31/2027) aims to: Investigate incorporating non-canonical nucleotides into genetic translation, Incorporate non-canonical amino acids via non-canonical genetic alphabets, and Use...

The National Science Foundation (NSF) Division of Integrative Organismal Systems awarded a $277,978 Project Grant under the Biological Sciences program (CFDA 47.074) to the University of California, Berkeley. The 3-year grant, beginning on Sep 1, 2023, aims to develop new tools and resources to enable more efficient gene editing in maize, the world's most produced crop. Specifically, the project will generate maize lines that constitutively express the Cas9 gene editing enzyme and engineer...