Collaborative Research: GCR: Accelerated Discovery of Synthetic Biological Materials

该项目旨在开发一条将经济从石油衍生塑料转变为生物塑料的途径，该生物塑料由细菌制造并来自可持续来源的合成生物材料(SBM)制成。一个由合成生物学、生物技术、机器学习、社会科学、材料科学和力学专家组成的汇聚团队将致力于开发商业上可行的、高性能的SBM塑料纤维，目标是建立一条管道，既能生产未来可持续的高性能SBM，又有助于为未来培养多样化的劳动力。研究活动集中在通过开发以下几个方面来应对关键挑战：(1)探索可编程为SBM生物合成细菌的潜在DNA序列，缩小设计和搜索空间；(2)一个变革性的发现管道，通过将机器学习工具与具有不同成本和保真度的第一原理模拟和实验相结合，快速识别高性能的SBM；以及(3)与技术经济、生命周期和供应链模型相联系的原创经济学和社会学框架，以制定将SBM推向市场的战略。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。

This project aims to develop a pathway to transform the economy from petroleum derived plastics to bioplastics made of synthetic biological materials (SBM) manufactured by bacteria and derived from sustainable sources. A convergent team comprised of experts from synthetic biology, biotechnology, machine learning, social sciences, materials science, and mechanics will work on developing commercially viable, high-performance plastic fibers made of SBMs with the goal of building a pipeline that will both produce sustainable high-performance SBMs of the future and help train a diverse workforce for the future.The research activities focus on addressing key challenges by developing: (1) machine-learning tools to explore potential DNA sequences that can be programmed into bacteria for SBM biosynthesis, reducing the size the design and search space; (2) a transformative discovery pipeline for rapid identification of high-performance SBMs by integrating machine learning tools with first-principle simulations and experimentation that have varying cost and fidelity; and (3) an original economics and sociological framework linked to techno-economic, life-cycle, and supply-chain models to formulate strategies to steer SBMs to market adoption.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.