SBIR Phase II: Hardware and Software Systems for Testing Engineered Microorganisms

这个小企业创新研究（SBIR）第二阶段项目的更广泛的影响/商业潜力是开发技术，将生物制造产品更快地推向市场。今天，生物学研究人员利用基因工程把微生物变成活的工厂：生产新疗法、食物、材料和燃料的细胞。这个项目将使研究人员更容易评估细胞是否准备好从实验室规模推广到生产规模。将开发检测微生物的新方法，并评估细胞的生长条件和培养基。这项工作将使潜在产品的效力、成本和生产时间得到优化，使研究人员能够更快地将他们的生物制造解决方案推向市场。这些生物制造产品为一些社会最大的挑战提供了革命性的解决方案，包括生化生产、气候变化、塑料污染、人类健康和粮食系统的可持续性。SBIR第二期项目建议开发技术，以解决研究人员寻求大规模生产新型基因工程系统所面临的挑战。今天，评估工程微生物的功效和商业化潜力需要大量的经验工作，这被遗留的硬件和软件系统所减缓。为了缩短这些产品的上市时间，该项目将在工业生物技术、生物仪器、自动化和生物模拟领域取得进展。这些技术的评估将使用各种标准生物和过程进行。系统将进行测试，以提高预测能力和效率。总体目标是将自动化细胞测试扩展到新型微生物，开发新的自动化细胞培养仪器和技术，并创建细胞生长动态的新统计模型。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值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 Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II project is to develop technology to bring biomanufactured products to market more rapidly. Today, biology researchers use genetic engineering to turn microorganisms into living factories: Cells that produce novel therapeutics, foods, materials, and fuels. This project will make it easier for researchers to evaluate if cells are ready to be promoted from lab-scale to production-scale. New methods for testing microorganisms will be developed, and the cells' growth conditions and media will be evaluated. This work will allow potential products to be optimized for potency, cost, and production time, enabling researchers to bring their biomanufacturing solutions to market more quickly. These biomanufactured products provide revolutionary solutions to some of society's biggest challenges including biochmeical production, climate change, plastic pollution, human health, and the sustainability of our food systems.This SBIR Phase II project proposes to develop technology that will address the challenges faced by researchers seeking to produce novel genetically engineered systems at scale. Today, evaluating the efficacy and commercialization potential of engineered microorganisms requires considerable empirical work, and this is slowed down by legacy hardware and software systems. With the goal of improving the time-to-market of these products, this project will create advances in the fields of industrial biotechnology, bioinstrumentation, automation and biological simulation. Evaluations of these techniques will be conducted using a variety of standard organisms and processes. Systems will be tested for increased predictive power and gains in efficiency. The overall objectives are to extend automated cell testing to new types of microorganisms, to develop new automated cell culture instrumentation and techniques, and to create new statistical models of the dynamics of cellular growth.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.