I-Corps: High-throughput screening platform for complex visual properties

这个i-Corps项目的更广泛的影响/商业潜力是开发一种技术，使蛋白质和细胞的快速和具有成本效益的工程成为可能。这项技术有可能加速开发多种类型的生物制品，如基于蛋白质的生物传感器、酶、治疗性蛋白质和基因电路。这项技术可能会导致生产现有材料的更环保的方法，并加快制药的开发。生物制药行业的治疗和诊断开发缓慢、昂贵且有风险；进入市场的药物通常需要一个漫长的发现和开发过程，需要十多年的时间，平均成本为10-20亿美元。这个平台寻求更高效地开发生物产品。这个i-Corps项目寻求开发一个基于显微镜的生物工程平台，可以以前所未有的速度设计蛋白质和细胞的空间和时间特性。该平台可能会使用定制的计算机视觉软件和光中介的单细胞检索方法来进行单细胞水平的筛选，从而将创新速度提高几个数量级。筛选过程和分析可以进行调整，以适应不同实验环境中特定工作流程的需要。通过优化生物学家常用的可视化工具--荧光蛋白探针，展示了该平台的实用性。使用这个平台，数以百万计的蛋白质变体被测试，并用最稳定的荧光输出识别出变体。这一奖项反映了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/commercial potential of this I-Corps project is the development of a technology that enables rapid and cost-effective engineering of proteins and cells. The technology has the potential to accelerate the development of many types of biological products such as protein-based biosensors, enzymes, therapeutic proteins, and genetic circuits. The technology could results in more environmentally-friendly methods of producing existing materials and faster development of pharmaceuticals. The bio-pharma industry suffers from slow, expensive, and risky development of therapeutics and diagnostics; The drugs that reach the market often require a lengthy discovery and development process that takes over a decade with an average cost of $1-2 billion. This platform seeks to develop bio-products more efficiently.This I-Corps project seeks to develop a microscopy-based bioengineering platform that can design spatial and temporal properties of proteins and cells at unprecedented speed. This platform may increase the speed of innovation by several magnitudes using custom computer vision software and a light-mediated, single-cell retrieval method to conduct single-cell level screening. The screening process and analyses can be tuned to fit the needs of a specific workflow in different experimental contexts. The platform's utility is demonstrated by optimizing fluorescent protein probes, common visualization tools used by biologists. Using this platform, millions protein variants are tested and variants are identified with the most stable fluorescence output.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.