I-Corps: Entrepreneurial Development of a Metal-binding Technology Platform

由于推动我们经济的许多工业化过程，水金属污染是一个普遍存在的问题。例子包括采矿排水、金属电镀、半导体制造和太阳能电池生产。这些例子涵盖了成熟的和新兴的行业，但由于金属污染的可能性，每个行业都对环境造成了重大影响。此外，伴生金属的损失会带来经济后果，因为未回收的材料代表了原材料利用方面的重大错失机会。该项目的目的是解决上述因工业化过程中金属损失而产生的环境和经济问题。通过这样做，该技术直接与一个？生物经济?（因为提议的方法利用生物技术来生产金属结合化合物）和“绿色制造”。后一个术语特别与布法罗，纽约西部和五大湖地区的历史产生共鸣，该团队将利用其地理位置和纽约州最近的强劲发展来实施基于废水金属回收和再利用的商业计划。I-Corps团队设计了一种异源生产系统，用于生产具有高亲和力的结合金属化合物的小分子天然产物。此外，该团队最近还设计了一种方法，将这种化合物和相关类似物吸附到固体基质上，从而实现了从受污染的水样中去除金属含量的异质方法。该提案旨在建立一个实验室规模的原型系统，该系统将所提出的活性树脂纳入流柱中，这样团队就可以使用附近金属电镀制造公司的实际废水来演示连续的金属去除过程。部分由于该公司和其他潜在合作伙伴表现出的商业兴趣，该团队发起了I-Corps申请，以生成该原型，并利用相关结果和获得的知识，正式建立一家基于该技术的初创公司。因此，I-Corps项目为两个目标的开发提供了一个理想的环境：1)金属去除和再利用原型系统开发（技术）和2)客户基础建立、公司组建和商业计划开发（商业）。

Water metal contamination is a ubiquitous problem due to the many industrialized processes that drive our economy. Examples include mining drainage, metal plating, semiconductor fabrication, and solar cell production. These examples straddle well-established and emerging industries but each poses significant environmental impact due to metal contamination potential. Furthermore, the loss of the associated metals carries an economic consequence as unrecovered material represents a significant missed opportunity in raw material utilization. The purpose of this project is to solve the aforementioned environmental and economic problems that arise from loss of metals through industrialized processes. By doing so, the technology directly aligns with the vision of a ?bio-based economy? (since the proposed approach leverages biotechnology to produce a metal-binding compound) and "green manufacturing." The latter term particularly resonates with the history of the Buffalo, Western New York, and Great Lakes region, and this team will leverage its geographic location and the strong recent developments in New York State start-up opportunities to implement a business plan based upon wastewater metal recovery and re-use.This I-Corps team has designed a heterologous production system for producing a small molecule natural product capable of binding metal compounds with high affinity. Furthermore, the team has recently devised a way to adsorb this compound and associated analogs to a solid matrix which enables a heterogeneous means of removing metal content from contaminated water samples. This proposal seeks to build a laboratory-scale prototype system that incorporates the proposed activated resin within a flow column such that the team can demonstrate a continuous metal removal process using actual wastewater from a near-by metal plating manufacturing company. Due in part to the commercial interest exhibited by this and other potential partners, the team initiated an I-Corps application to enable generation of this prototype and use the associated results and knowledge gained to formally establish a start-up company based upon this technology. Hence, the I-Corps program provides an ideal setting for the two goals to be developed over the award period: 1) metal removal and re-use prototype system development (technical) and 2) customer base establishment, company formation, and business plan development (commercial).