MIP: BioPolymers, Automated Cellular Infrastructure, Flow, and Integrated Chemistry: Materials Innovation Platform (BioPACIFIC MIP)

非技术描述：位于加州大学圣巴巴拉分校和洛杉矶校区的BioPACIFIC MIP(生物聚合物、自动化细胞基础设施、流动和集成化学：材料创新平台)是一个研究平台，致力于利用酵母、真菌和细菌作为生物工厂来生成构建块，以制造具有优于现有材料性能的聚合物材料(塑料)。机器人自动化用于快速制备生物衍生聚合物材料，使用先进的3D打印机将这些材料合并到更高级别的结构中，并使用尖端表征工具来确定原子和分子水平上的结构和组织如何影响材料性能。专用和可广泛访问的数据库记录了这些工具的性能和加工信息，这些工具与计算机建模和机器学习相结合，以帮助关闭设计循环，并根据材料基因组倡议的方法优化这些来自活生物体的塑料。这些国家用户设施中最先进的工具与世界一流的服务相结合，使用户和内部研究人员能够加速发现和开发性能超过传统石化方法生产的材料的新材料。BioPACIFIC MIP是一个科学生态系统，由来自材料科学、生物、化学和工程的研究人员组成，研究人员在这里共享工具、样本、数据、软件和技术诀窍，以促进科学和技术的集体进步。通过与专家人员的面对面互动和年度技术研讨会，BioPACIFIC MIP还在自动化合成生物学、化学合成和先进生物材料表征方面教育和培训研究人员，特别是设施用户和潜在用户，同时在所有组织级别和运营的各个方面促进多样性和包容性。技术描述：发现和开发具有新特性的先进生物材料是BioPACIFIC MIP的中心重点。这一目标是通过将由反馈回路中的手性、区域选择性和功能性生物来源单体库构建的策略性、顺序控制或刺激响应性聚合物的合成和物理化学表征与模拟紧密结合来实现的。加州大学洛杉矶分校的自动化、高通量活生物反应器平台生产具有立体特异性官能团的单体，这些单体来自酵母、真菌和细菌，这些单体提供给加州大学圣巴巴拉分校基于材料基因组计划的分层计算、自动聚合和流动化学循环。尖端材料表征工具包括低温微晶电子衍射系统，该系统能够快速确定积木和聚合物的二维和三维结构，以及X射线散射和高通量微流变学。集成的最先进的模拟工具被用来预测合成材料的性能，并系统地探索新型手性、区域选择性和功能性生物来源单体的设计前景。总而言之，BioPACIFIC MIP为内部研究人员和设施用户提供了独特的机会来确定结构-性质关系，这些关系有助于指导分子级工程和化学配方针对特定材料目标，并提供对天然生物基材料如何组装和功能的洞察。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Nontechnical Description:The BioPACIFIC MIP (BioPolymers, Automated Cellular Infrastructure, Flow, and Integrated Chemistry: Materials Innovation Platform), located at the University of California's (UC) Santa Barbara and Los Angeles campuses, is a research platform dedicated to exploiting yeast, fungi, and bacteria as biological factories to generate building blocks in order to make polymeric materials (plastics) with superior properties to existing materials. Robotic automation is used to quickly prepare the bio-derived polymer materials, these materials are incorporated into higher order structures using advanced 3D printers, and cutting-edge characterization tools are used to determine how structure and organization at the atomic and molecular level affect materials properties. Dedicated and broadly accessible databases record properties and processing information from these tools, which are integrated with computer modeling and machine learning to help close the design loop and optimize these plastics derived from living organisms, in alignment with the methodology of the Materials Genome Initiative. Together these state-of-the-art tools in a national user facility, combined with world-class services, allow users and in-house researchers to accelerate the discovery and development of new materials with performances exceeding those of materials produced through traditional petrochemical-based methods. The BioPACIFIC MIP is a scientific ecosystem with researchers coming from materials science, biology, chemistry, and engineering, where researchers share tools, samples, data, software, and know-how for the collective advancement of science and technology. Through in-person interaction with expert staff and at an annual technical workshop, the BioPACIFIC MIP also educates and trains researchers, especially facility users and potential users, in automated synthetic biology, chemical synthesis, and advanced biomaterials characterization, while promoting diversity and inclusion at all organizational levels and in all aspects of operation.Technical Description:The discovery and development of advanced biomaterials with novel properties is the central focus of the BioPACIFIC MIP. This goal is realized through tight integration of synthesis, and physiochemical characterization of tactic, sequence-controlled, or stimuli-responsive polymers constructed from libraries of chiral, regioselective, and functional bio-sourced monomers in a feedback loop with simulation. The automated, high-throughput Living Bioreactor Platform at UC Los Angeles produces monomers with stereospecific functional groups from yeast, fungi, and bacteria that feed into a Materials Genome Initiative-based loop of hierarchical computation, automated polymerization, and flow chemistry at UC Santa Barbara. Cutting-edge materials characterization tools include a cryogenic microcrystal electron diffraction system that enables rapid determination of the structures of the building blocks and polymers in both two and three dimensions as well as x-ray scattering and high-throughput micro-rheology. Integrated state-of-the-art simulation tools are used to predict the properties of synthesized materials and systematically explore the design landscape of new chiral, regioselective, and functional bio-sourced monomers. Taken together, the BioPACIFIC MIP provides in-house researchers and facility users the unique opportunity to determine structure-property relationships that serve to guide molecular-level engineering and chemical formulation toward specific materials targets and provides insight into how natural, bio-based materials assemble and function.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.