SBIR Phase I: Massively scalable storage of nucleic acids using barcoded polymer packets

这个小型企业创新研究(SBIR)第一阶段项目的更广泛影响是开发了一个存储生物材料的技术平台，这将改善公共健康结果，并使不断扩大的数字数据世界能够存储。核酸是21世纪的新亮点；它们编码了我们的健康，可以重新用作数字数据的替代存储介质。利用这些生物材料中编码的信息需要一种可扩展的方式来存储和访问核酸。几十年来，我们一直依赖能源密集型的低温存储和昂贵的机器人来维持核酸的完整性，而核酸是不可扩展的。这一提议的成功结果是一种存储大量核酸的替代解决方案，消除了对冰柜的需求，并使利用核酸材料的新产品成为可能。拟议的项目将为开发低成本、可扩展的核酸材料解决方案奠定基础。目前的方法受到低温要求的限制，以绕过核酸的降解，需要持续的电力供应和昂贵的机器人。相反，拟议的项目侧重于在室温下保持核酸的完整性数十年，同时通过利用分子在溶液中的快速扩散，实现类似于计算机或互联网搜索引擎的搜索和检索功能。这一雄心勃勃的目标将通过使用新型合成聚合物来实现，这种聚合物与生物材料兼容，能够快速包裹核酸，同时提供长期保护，而不需要低温。通过该项目发现的合成聚合物将使用纯化的核酸进行测试，包括动物、细菌或病毒基因组，以证明可用于拟议技术的材料的能力和广度。该奖项反映了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 of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project is the development of a technology platform for storing biological materials that will improve public health outcomes and enable the storage of the ever-expanding digital data universe. Nucleic acids are the new bits of the 21st century; they encode our health and can be repurposed as alternative storage media for digital data. Harnessing the information encoded in these biological materials requires a scalable way to store and access nucleic acids. For decades, we have relied on energy-intensive low-temperature storage and expensive robotics to maintain the integrity of nucleic acids, which are not scalable. The successful outcome of this proposal is an alternative solution to store massive amounts of nucleic acids, obviating the need for freezers and enabling new products that leverage nucleic acid materials.The proposed project will lay the foundation for developing a low-cost scalable solution for nucleic acid materials. Current approaches are limited by the requirement of low temperature to circumvent the degradation of nucleic acids, requiring a constant supply of electricity and expensive robotics. Instead, the proposed project focuses on maintaining the integrity of nucleic acids for decades at room temperature and simultaneously enabling search and retrieval functions akin to a computer or internet search engine by leveraging the rapid diffusion of molecules in solution. This ambitious goal will be achieved by using novel synthetic polymers that are made compatible with biological materials to enable rapid encapsulation of nucleic acids while providing long-term protection without the need for low temperature. The resulting synthetic polymers discovered through the project will be tested using purified nucleic acids, including animal, bacterial, or viral genomes, to demonstrate the capabilities and breadth of materials that can be used for the proposed technology.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.