EFRI-MIKS: Microfluidic-Based Screening of Multi-Kingdom Microbial Communication Molecules

由研究和创新新兴前沿办公室颁发的NSF奖项支持创建新颖平台和动物模型的工作，从而对复杂的多王国相互作用产生新的见解。已经取得了重大进展，解码小分子信号开发的所有有机体响应，并在他们的环境中生存。然而，进化程序确保了其他生物在防御或共生策略中模仿或劫持这些通信信号，指数级地增加了这种化学语言的范围和复杂性。这些界间信号的结果可以决定所有参与生物的行为，生存，毒性或基因表达。由于用于研究每种生物的方法和平台的差异以及所涉及的信号的复杂性，发现这些相互作用的进展缓慢。在这里，我们汇集了来自四个科学学科的专业知识;化学，生物医学工程，免疫学和微生物学;提出颠覆性的方法来捕捉这种语言。聚焦真菌次级代谢产物（SM）作为通讯分子，我们展示了新的微器件在假设驱动和基于发现的科学中的使能特性和高通量能力。我们的首要目标是创建广泛适用的微尺度方法，以解开王国内和王国间相互作用中细胞与细胞通信的秘密语言。该奖项的一个关键组成部分是通过创建一个互动的，动手的，实验室课程，让学生对微工程，真菌遗传学和分子生物学的各个方面保持敏感，使高中学生了解这些多王国相互作用对人类健康，食品安全和环境的广泛影响。

This NSF award by the Office of Emerging Frontiers in Research and Innovation supports work to enable the creation of novel platforms and animal models allowing new insight in complex multi-kingdom interactions. Significant progress has been made to decode the small molecule signals developed by all organisims to respond to, and survive in, their environments. However, evolutionary programs have ensured that other organisms mimic or highjack these communication signals in a defensive or symbiotic maneuver, exponentially increasing the scope and complexity of this chemical language. The outcome of these inter-kingdom signals can determine the behavior, survival, virulence or gene expression of all participating organisms. Because ofthe disparity in the methods and platforms used and available to study each organisms as well as the complexity of the signaling involved, progress in discovering these interactions is slow. Here we bring together expertise from four scientific disciplines; chemistry, biomedical engineering, immunology andmicrobiology; to present disruptive methodologies to capture this language. Focusing on fungal secondary metabolites (SM) as the communication molecules, we demonstrate the enabling features and high-throughput power of novel microdevices in both hypothesis driven and discovery-based science. Our overarching goal is to create broadly applicable microscaled methods to unlock the secret language of cell-to-cell communication in intra- and inter-kingdom interactions. A key component of this award is to prime students at the highschool level to the broad implications on human health, food safety and the environment of these multi-kingdom interactions, through the creation of an interactive, hands-on, lab course, in which students will be sensitized to aspects of micro-engineering, fungal genetics and molecular biology.