SBIR Phase I: Massively scalable storage of nucleic acids using barcoded polymer packets

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The broader impact of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project is the development of a technology platform for storing biological materials that will improve public health outcomes and enable the storage of the ever-expanding digital data universe. Nucleic acids are the new bits of the 21st century; they encode our health and can be repurposed as alternative storage media for digital data. Harnessing the information encoded in these biological materials requires a scalable way to store and access nucleic acids. For decades, we have relied on energy-intensive low-temperature storage and expensive robotics to maintain the integrity of nucleic acids, which are not scalable. The successful outcome of this proposal is an alternative solution to store massive amounts of nucleic acids, obviating the need for freezers and enabling new products that leverage nucleic acid materials.The proposed project will lay the foundation for developing a low-cost scalable solution for nucleic acid materials. Current approaches are limited by the requirement of low temperature to circumvent the degradation of nucleic acids, requiring a constant supply of electricity and expensive robotics. Instead, the proposed project focuses on maintaining the integrity of nucleic acids for decades at room temperature and simultaneously enabling search and retrieval functions akin to a computer or internet search engine by leveraging the rapid diffusion of molecules in solution. This ambitious goal will be achieved by using novel synthetic polymers that are made compatible with biological materials to enable rapid encapsulation of nucleic acids while providing long-term protection without the need for low temperature. The resulting synthetic polymers discovered through the project will be tested using purified nucleic acids, including animal, bacterial, or viral genomes, to demonstrate the capabilities and breadth of materials that can be used for the proposed technology.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.