STTR Phase I: Biophotonic plant foliage optical inspection system for improved indoor molecular farming of plant-based medicines

这个小型企业创新研究(SBIR)第一阶段项目的更广泛影响是提供安全、可靠、可持续的药物和分子药物种植。室内农场不受天气和气候的影响，通常位于人口中心附近，从而降低了运输成本和化石燃料的使用。其经济优势包括使用杀虫剂和除草剂最少的植物制成的低成本药物，以及90%的低用水量。植物性药品市场的年增长率预计将超过20%。在植物中生产药物将加快制药发展，因为加工厂在监管良好的受控环境中的速度和一致性。该项目将开发和演示一种实时植物叶片光学检测系统，该系统将预测作物的药物生产并发出植物胁迫信号，使种植者能够修复缺陷和优化生产。分子农业的这些优势可以更普遍地用于农作物食品。拟议的项目提出了一种过程中的精确化学成像仪，用于二维了解蛋白质和应激源在烟草叶片中发生在哪里、如何发生以及以什么速度发生。成像仪方法分析药用蛋白生产和粮食作物生长。测试计划将修改生产变量，包括引入植物中的特殊细菌，以刺激它们产生蛋白质，从而能够对产生的植物压力和蛋白质生产力反应进行指纹识别。为期两周的试验周期将允许快速开发算法来模拟生产率并将其优化用于商业用途。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。

The broader impact of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project is to provide safe, reliable, sustainable medicines with molecular medicine farming. Indoor farms are insulated from the impacts of weather and climate and are usually located near population centers, reducing transportation costs and fossil fuel use. The economic advantages include low-cost medicines using plants with minimal pesticides and herbicides, and with 90% lower water consumption. Plant-based pharmaceuticals markets are expected to grow yearly more than 20%. Producing medicines in plants will accelerate pharmaceutical development, due to the speed and consistency of processing plants in well-regulated controlled environments. This project will develop and demonstrate a real-time plant foliage optical inspection system that will predict pharmaceutical production in crops and signal plant stress, enabling the grower to remediate defects and optimize production. These advantages of molecular farming can be used more generally for crop foods. The proposed project advances an in-process precise chemical imager for two-dimensional understanding of where, how and at what rate protein and stressor generation occurs in the leaves of Nicotiana benthamiana plants. The imager method analyzes medical protein production and food crop growth. The test plan will modify production variables, including specialized bacteria introduced into the plants to stimulate them to generate the proteins, to enable fingerprinting the generated plant stresses and protein productivity responses. Trial cycles of two weeks will permit rapid development of algorithms to model production rates and optimization for commercial use.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.