Project Grant W911NF2110228

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 Project Grant award from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS), under the Biomedical Research and Research Training Program (CFDA 93.859), provides $148,568 to The Leland Stanford Junior University to develop a high-throughput platform for the parallel expression, purification, and quantitative assay of over 1,000 noncanonical amino acid-containing protein variants. The goal is to systematically and precisely perturb the electrostatic properties of critical catalytic...

This Project Grant award under the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS) Biomedical Research and Research Training Program (CFDA 93.859) provides $124,767 to The Regents of the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) for a research project titled "Probing the Rules of Protein Structure-Function Relationships Through the De Novo Design of Functional Proteins." The project aims to enhance understanding of protein structure-function relationships through the de...

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 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 three-year Project Grant from the National Science Foundation's Division of Molecular and Cellular Biosciences totals $1,512,792 to fund research at Louisiana State University examining the gene regulatory networks affected by purine catabolites in bacterial pathogens. The research aims to identify additional transcription factors in Burkholderia thailandensis responsive to urate and xanthine, which accumulate in host tissues during infection due to production of reactive oxygen species....

This National Science Foundation (NSF) Biological Sciences grant award provides $2,225,964 to the Georgia Tech Research Corporation (Georgia Tech) to develop a novel biosensing platform called "protocell communities" that can be used for rapid, low-cost medical diagnostics. The project aims to create a tool that can diagnose medical conditions by detecting and integrating multiple indicator molecules, addressing limitations of single-analyte diagnostics. The protocell technology uses...

This Project Grant award of $729,010 from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS) Biomedical Research and Research Training Program (CFDA 93.859) supports research to characterize novel phage lysis proteins and their mechanisms of action. The 5-year project, awarded to Texas A&M University, aims to experimentally elucidate the molecular mechanisms of diverse phage lysis proteins, including those found in phages infecting abundant but understudied human gut microbiota....

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...

This $1,000,000 Project Grant award from the National Science Foundation's Biological Sciences (CFDA 47.074) program supports research by the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) to design, build, and test synthetic signaling systems built from computationally-designed de novo protein components. The goal is to develop stable, tunable, and modular signaling systems capable of precisely controlling biological processes, with applications in biotechnology such as engineered cells for...