STC: Center for Research On Programmable Plant Systems

这个NSF科技中心旨在设计一种人与植物之间的双向通信系统，该系统将极大地增强预测、设计和调节作物农业中生物行为的能力。这一跨学科的努力将植物科学、工程学、计算机科学和科学技术研究结合在一起，为系统地发现管理田间环境中植物系统生物行为的规则建立了一个使能框架。该团队的方法将遗传、生化、细胞、生物和生态原理与环境和社会经济考虑结合在一起。同时，该中心的研究推动了系统和合成生物学、生物技术、纳米技术、自动化、机器人、计算和通信等领域的创新。该中心通过新的课程和研究活动来教育学生，这些课程和研究活动将计算机科学、工程学和公众参与与本科生、硕士和博士生的生物学和生命科学知识相结合。该中心将公众参与整合到所有活动中，以推动中心研究人员、农业部门的利益攸关方和普通公众之间持续、迭代的对话。该中心努力让我们社会的多样性充分参与，并通过建立通往STEM领域的管道和为来自农村和代表性不足的少数族裔社区的学生和年轻专业人员提供持续指导，努力扩大对其使命的参与。为了追求其科技目标和产生更广泛影响的目标，该中心通过一个具有四个技术推力的创新引擎和一个具有四个研究主题的发现引擎(称为生活实验室)来组织研究。这些相互关联的团队参与了跨学科、技术挑战以及科学和社会目标的设计-构建-测试-学习的连续循环。创新引擎专注于通过以下推动构建和集成物联网(IoLT)的元素：(1)生物换能器通过合成生物基因电路产生可编程植物，使植物中的分子过程和数字传感器之间能够进行双向通信。(2)纳米传感器改进和补充了分子生物传感器，使植物和数字系统之间的通信成为可能。(3)数字接口开发灵活协作的机器人、通信技术和边缘计算能力，以协调可编程工厂和云托管模型之间的高效通信。(4)数字系统开发了工厂系统的集成多尺度模型，该模型集成了数据并通过混合机械和数据驱动策略协调了整个IoLT的执行。此外，发现引擎的生命实验室与所有推进器互动，以追求以下研究主题：(1)资源利用和生长优化部署可编程植物，剖析定义水和氮使用以及植物生长的途径，并调节这些过程，以提高生产率和可持续性。(2)预测模型和种质改良利用IoLT、可编程植物和集成多尺度模型来预测复杂环境中的涌现表型，加快作物改良的进程。(3)植物-微生物相互作用应用创新引擎的技术来获取近根区或根际的物理、化学和微生物动力学，并将植物-微生物组特征整合到系统生物学模型、育种策略和作物管理中。(4)公众参与渗透到中心的所有活动中，以促进和研究研究人员、利益相关者和公众之间围绕科学和技术目标的开发、理解和沟通的富有成效的互动。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This NSF Science and Technology Center aims to devise a two-way communication system between humans and plants that will dramatically enhance the ability to predict, design, and mediate biological behavior in crop-based agriculture. This transdisciplinary effort brings together plant sciences, engineering, computer science, and science and technology studies to establish an enabling framework for the systematic discovery of the rules that govern biological behavior of plant systems in field environments. The team’s approach couples genetic, biochemical, cellular, organismal and ecological principles with environmental and socio-economic considerations. In parallel, the Center's research drives innovation in systems and synthetic biology, biotechnology, nanotechnology, automation, robotics, computing, and communication. The Center educates students through new curriculum and research engagements that integrate computer science, engineering, and public engagement with knowledge in biology and the life sciences for undergraduate, master's, and Ph.D. students. The Center integrates public engagement throughout all activities to drive continuous, iterative dialogue between the Center's researchers, stakeholders in the agricultural sector, and the general public. The Center strives to engage the full diversity of our society and broaden participation in its mission by creating pipelines into STEM fields and sustained mentoring for students and young professionals from rural and underrepresented minority communities. In pursuit of its scientific and technological goals and its aim for broader impacts, the Center organizes research across an innovation engine with four technological thrusts and a discovery engine with four research themes called living laboratories. These interlinked teams engage in continuous cycles of design-build-test-learn across disciplines, technical challenges, and scientific and social goals. The innovation engine focuses on building and integrating the elements of an Internet-of-Living-Things (IoLT) through the following Thrusts: (1) Biotransducers give rise to programmable plants through synthetic biological gene circuits that enable bidirectional communications between molecular processes in plants and digital sensors. (2) Nanotransducers improve and complement molecular biological transducers to enable communication between plants and digital systems. (3) Digital interfaces develop agile and cooperative robots, communications technologies, and edge-computing capabilities to mediate efficient communication between programmable plants and cloud-hosted models. (4) Digital systems develop integrated multi-scale models of plant systems that integrate data and orchestrate actuation across the IoLT with hybrid mechanistic and data-driven strategies. Furthermore, the Living Laboratories of the discovery engine interact with all thrusts in pursuit of the following research themes: (1) Resource use and growth optimization deploy programmable plants to dissect the pathways that define water and nitrogen use and plant development, and modulate these processes for improved outcomes in productivity and sustainability. (2) Predictive modeling and germplasm improvement use the IoLT, programmable plants, and integrative multi-scale models to predict emergent phenotypes in complex environments and accelerate the process of breeding crops with improved performance. (3) Plant-microbe interactions apply technologies from the innovation engine to access the physical, chemical, and microbial dynamics of the near-root zone or rhizosphere and integrate plant-microbiome characteristics into systems biology models, breeding strategies, and crop management. (4) Public engagement permeates all Center activities to facilitate and study productive interactions among researchers, stakeholders, and general publics around the development, understanding, and communication of scientific and technological goals.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.