NSF Engines Development Award: Advancing carbon-neutral crop technologies to develop sustainable consumer goods (AL, GA, NC, TN)

NSF 引擎发展奖：推进碳中和作物技术以开发可持续消费品（阿拉巴马州、佐治亚州、北卡罗来纳州、田纳西州）

• 批准号: 2302898
• 负责人: Jeremy Schmutz
• 金额: $ 100万
• 依托单位: HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Cooperative Agreement
• 财政年份: 2023
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2023-05-15 至 2025-04-30
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2302898&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: NSF; Engines; Development; Award; Advancing

This Regional Innovation Engines Development Award focuses on building a circular bioeconomy for building materials and consumer goods in the southeastern United States. The project is designed to replace high environmental impact products with locally developed and grown perennial grasses that grow on marginal land, improve carbon sequestration, reduce imports, and have the potential to decarbonize multiple industries. The southeastern US has significant resources in underutilized farmable land, research in plant genomics, multiple groups engineering novel sustainable biomaterials, startup incubators, a mission to revitalize rural economies, and a future workforce across rural and urban areas, and graduates from universities, minority-serving colleges and smaller colleges. This integrated regional accelerator for research, training, outreach, and innovation will catalyze sweeping changes in manufacturing toward carbon neutrality. To achieve this goal, HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology, a nonprofit research, education, and economic development organization, will partner with a broad group of research and land grant institutions, including Alabama A&M University, Auburn University, North Carolina State University, Tennessee State University, Tuskegee University, University of Georgia, and the University of Tennessee, as well as industry partner Genera, farmers, Ag-tech entrepreneurs, and other collaborators in the agricultural and manufacturing sectors.This development award activity will span the entire pipeline for replacing existing carbon-intensive materials in manufacturing with perennial grass-derived materials. We will genetically customize these plants with genomics-enabled breeding to improve the utility of the biomass, develop new and improved biomaterials from these plants, and enable new industry applications using these materials. The research from the Engine will support manufacturers in increasing their sustainability by using these materials. When fully developed, they will have partnerships across multiple industries to greatly increase the impact on reducing carbon emissions. Woven into these efforts, there will be training across the entire development chain, including farmers, students, scientists, and dedicated workforce development efforts for material and goods manufacturing. This planning award period will enable the team to develop specific material targets for applications that will drive the research efforts of the Engine and expand our interactions with industry partners who will participate in driving the research aims and use these materials developed in the Engine.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.

该区域创新引擎发展奖的重点是在美国东南部为建筑材料和消费品建立循环生物经济。该项目旨在用当地开发和种植的多年生牧草替代高环境影响产品，这些牧草生长在边际土地上，改善碳固存，减少进口，并有可能使多个行业脱碳。美国东南部在未充分利用的可耕地，植物基因组学研究，多个工程新颖的可持续生物材料的团体，创业孵化器，振兴农村经济的使命，以及农村和城市地区的未来劳动力，以及大学，少数民族服务学院和较小学院的毕业生方面拥有丰富的资源。这一综合性的区域研究、培训、推广和创新加速器将促进制造业朝着碳中和的方向发生全面变化。为了实现这一目标，哈德逊阿尔法生物技术研究所，一个非营利性的研究，教育和经济发展组织，将与广泛的研究和土地赠款机构，包括亚拉巴马A& M大学，奥本大学，北卡罗来纳州州立大学，田纳西州州立大学，塔斯基吉大学，格鲁吉亚大学和田纳西大学，以及行业合作伙伴通用，农民，这项发展奖活动将涵盖用多年生草衍生材料替代制造业中现有的碳密集型材料的整个管道。我们将通过基因组学育种对这些植物进行基因定制，以提高生物质的利用率，从这些植物中开发新的和改进的生物材料，并使用这些材料实现新的工业应用。Engine的研究将支持制造商通过使用这些材料来提高其可持续性。当完全开发后，他们将在多个行业建立合作伙伴关系，大大增加减少碳排放的影响。在这些努力中，将有整个发展链的培训，包括农民，学生，科学家，以及材料和商品制造业的专门劳动力发展努力。该计划奖励期将使该团队能够为应用程序开发特定的材料目标，这些目标将推动发动机的研究工作，并扩大我们与行业合作伙伴的互动，这些合作伙伴将参与推动研究目标并使用发动机中开发的这些材料。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进行评估，被认为值得支持审查标准。