CAREER: Selective activation of catalytic RNA to control energy flow in microbial consortia

微生物群落几乎无处不在，是对农业、废物处理、材料寿命和人类健康至关重要的过程的基础。对这些群落的遗传操作可以用来了解它们是如何形成的，并引入新的功能，以增加土壤的农业生产力，改善人类健康，从废物中回收能源，实现循环经济，等等。为此，该项目创造了一种对微生物群落进行基因编程的新方法，将为生物技术和医学领域的新应用打开大门。该项目还开展了一项以社区学院为重点的综合研究和教育计划。虽然社区大学培养了一大批多样化的学生，但它们往往缺乏获得高影响力研究经验的机会。通过一系列以研究为重点的活动，该项目旨在增加社区大学生攻读科学、技术、工程和数学(STEM)学位和职业的人数。在过去的十年中，在开发框架以对实验室中生长的模型微生物进行遗传编程方面取得了很大进展。要对土壤、河流、肠道、矿物和建筑材料中发现的本地微生物群落进行编程，将需要类似的框架。该项目解决了对微生物群落进行基因工程的广泛挑战，这些微生物群落由各种非模式物种组成，通常存在于复杂的基质中(例如，土壤、生物膜、材料)。设计的RNA系统将被用来研究不同的遗传程序如何在微生物群落中传播，并实施时空控制，以便遗传程序仅在特定的群落成员中激活。这些方法将被结合并应用于创建基因计划，以增强微生物群落直接从废物中获取能量的能力。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并已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。

Microbial communities are found almost everywhere and underlie processes critical to agriculture, waste treatment, the longevity of materials, and human health. Genetic manipulation of these communities can be used to understand how they form and to introduce new functions to increase the agricultural productivity of soil, improve human health, recover energy from waste materials to achieve a circular economy, and more. To that end, this project creates a new method for genetically programming microbial communities that will open the door for new applications in biotechnology and medicine. This project also carries out an integrated research and education plan that focuses on community colleges. While community colleges educate a large and diverse student body, they often lack access to high-impact research experiences. Through a series of research-focused activities, this project aims to increase the number of community college students pursuing degrees and careers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). In the last decade, great progress has been made in developing frameworks to genetically program model microbes grown in the laboratory. To program the native microbial communities found in soils, rivers, guts, minerals, and built materials, analogous frameworks will be required. This project addresses the broad challenge of genetically engineering microbial communities that are composed of diverse non-model species and often found in complex matrices (e.g., soil, biofilms, materials). Engineered RNA systems will be used to study how different genetic programs spread throughout microbial communities and to implement spatiotemporal control such that genetic programs are only activated in specific community members. These methods will be combined and applied to create genetic programs that enhance the ability of microbial communities to harvest energy directly from waste materials.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.