PFI-TT: High-Throughput Plant Genetics Platform

这一创新-技术转化伙伴关系(PFI-TT)项目的更广泛的影响/商业潜力是改进农作物的育种。测量遗传变异的遗传是现代植物育种的重要组成部分。在旺季，公司每天单独进行数十万次基因测量，以培育出最高产、最具弹性和最美味的作物。这项拟议的技术有望促进大量并行、低成本的植物遗传学测量的执行。这一战略将使高度信息丰富的育种战略能够以一种以前不可能实现的方式得到广泛应用，因为目前的方法成本更高，处理速度更慢。拟议的系统预计将在农业和医疗领域都有应用。拟议的项目将利用美国国家科学基金会IUCRC集成微流体先进设计和制造中心(CADMIM，美国国家科学基金会奖IIP-1841509)最近发明的一项技术，该技术能够通过使用详细的微型管道网络来制定大型基因测量阵列。这个PFI团队此前已经证明，建议的系统能够执行准备目标基因测量反应所需的分配和混合操作。然而，这些反应本身还有待证明。这个PFI项目将把技术转移到一种新的材料平台上，这种平台将更快地制造，更有利于执行所需的生化反应。还将描述遗传测量的错误率，并将调整制造工艺以提高精度。最后，每台设备的基因测量数量将扩大，目标是在每台设备上同时进行约6000次测量。该项目的预期技术终点将是一个功能齐全的原型，可供植物农业行业的不同公司进行测试。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并已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。

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Partnerships for Innovation - Technology Translation (PFI-TT) project is in improving the breeding of agricultural crops. Measuring the inheritance of genetic variations is a critical component of modern plant breeding. Companies individually perform hundreds of thousands of genetic measurements each day during peak season as they work to breed the most productive, most resilient, and most appetizing crops. The proposed technology is expected to facilitate the performance of very large numbers of parallel, low cost of plant genetics measurements. This strategy will allow highly information-rich breeding strategies to be broadly employed in a way that has not previously been possible due to the higher cost and slower processing of current approaches. The proposed system is anticipated to have applications in both agriculture and healthcare.The proposed project will leverage a technology recently invented at the NSF IUCRC Center for Advanced Design and Manufacturing of Integrated Microfluidics (CADMIM, NSF Award IIP-1841509) that enables the formulation of large arrays of genetic measurements through the use of detailed networks of miniaturized plumbing. This PFI team has previously demonstrated that the proposed system is capable of performing the distribution and mixing operations required to prepare the targeted genetic measurement reactions. However, the reactions themselves have yet to be demonstrated. This PFI project will transition the technology to a new material platform that will be faster to manufacture and more conducive to performing the required biochemical reactions. The error rate of the genetic measurements will also be characterized, and the manufacturing processes will be tuned to improve accuracy. Finally, the number of genetic measurements per device will be scaled up, with a target of performing about 6000 measurements simultaneously on each device. The expected technical endpoint of this project will be a fully functional prototype ready for testing by different companies in the plant agriculture industry.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.