PFI-TT: High-Throughput Plant Genetics Platform

创新伙伴关系-技术转化项目的更广泛影响/商业潜力在于改进农作物育种。测量遗传变异的遗传是现代植物育种的一个重要组成部分。为了培育出产量最高、适应力最强、最可口的作物，各家公司每天都要在旺季进行数十万次基因检测。所提出的技术有望促进大量并行、低成本植物遗传学测量的实现。这一策略将允许高度信息丰富的育种策略以一种以前由于当前方法成本较高和处理速度较慢而无法实现的方式得到广泛应用。该系统预计将在农业和医疗保健领域得到应用。拟议的项目将利用最近在美国国家科学基金会（NSF） IUCRC集成微流体先进设计和制造中心（CADMIM， NSF奖IIP-1841509）发明的一项技术，该技术可以通过使用微型管道的详细网络来制定大型遗传测量阵列。该PFI团队先前已经证明，所提议的系统能够执行准备目标遗传测量反应所需的分配和混合操作。然而，这些反应本身还有待证实。该PFI项目将把该技术转变为一种新的材料平台，该平台将更快地制造并更有利于执行所需的生化反应。基因测量的错误率也将被表征，制造过程将被调整以提高准确性。最后，每台设备的基因测量数量将按比例增加，目标是在每台设备上同时执行约6000次测量。该项目的预期技术终点将是一个功能齐全的原型，准备由植物农业行业的不同公司进行测试。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 Partnerships for Innovation - Technology Translation (PFI-TT) project is in improving the breeding of agricultural crops. Measuring the inheritance of genetic variations is a critical component of modern plant breeding. Companies individually perform hundreds of thousands of genetic measurements each day during peak season as they work to breed the most productive, most resilient, and most appetizing crops. The proposed technology is expected to facilitate the performance of very large numbers of parallel, low cost of plant genetics measurements. This strategy will allow highly information-rich breeding strategies to be broadly employed in a way that has not previously been possible due to the higher cost and slower processing of current approaches. The proposed system is anticipated to have applications in both agriculture and healthcare.The proposed project will leverage a technology recently invented at the NSF IUCRC Center for Advanced Design and Manufacturing of Integrated Microfluidics (CADMIM, NSF Award IIP-1841509) that enables the formulation of large arrays of genetic measurements through the use of detailed networks of miniaturized plumbing. This PFI team has previously demonstrated that the proposed system is capable of performing the distribution and mixing operations required to prepare the targeted genetic measurement reactions. However, the reactions themselves have yet to be demonstrated. This PFI project will transition the technology to a new material platform that will be faster to manufacture and more conducive to performing the required biochemical reactions. The error rate of the genetic measurements will also be characterized, and the manufacturing processes will be tuned to improve accuracy. Finally, the number of genetic measurements per device will be scaled up, with a target of performing about 6000 measurements simultaneously on each device. The expected technical endpoint of this project will be a fully functional prototype ready for testing by different companies in the plant agriculture industry.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.