NSF Engines Development Award: Advancing carbon-neutral crop technologies to develop sustainable consumer goods (AL, GA, NC, TN)

该区域创新引擎发展奖的重点是在美国东南部建立建筑材料和消费品的循环生物经济。该项目旨在用生长在边缘土地上的当地开发和种植的多年生牧草取代高环境影响产品，改善碳固存，减少进口，并具有使多个行业脱碳的潜力。美国东南部在未充分利用的可耕地、植物基因组学研究、多组工程新型可持续生物材料、创业孵化器、振兴农村经济的使命、农村和城市地区的未来劳动力、大学、少数民族学院和小型学院的毕业生等方面拥有大量资源。这一促进研究、培训、推广和创新的综合性区域加速器将促进制造业向碳中和方向的全面变革。为了实现这一目标，哈德逊-阿尔法生物技术研究所，一个非营利性的研究、教育和经济发展组织，将与广泛的研究和土地授予机构合作，包括阿拉巴马农工大学、奥本大学、北卡罗莱纳州立大学、田纳西州立大学、塔斯基吉大学、佐治亚大学和田纳西大学，以及行业合作伙伴Genera、农民、农业技术企业家、以及农业和制造业的其他合作者。这项开发奖励活动将跨越整个管道，用多年生草衍生材料取代现有的制造业碳密集型材料。我们将通过基因组学育种对这些植物进行基因定制，以提高生物质的利用率，从这些植物中开发新的和改进的生物材料，并利用这些材料实现新的工业应用。引擎的研究将支持制造商通过使用这些材料来提高其可持续性。在全面发展后，它们将与多个行业建立伙伴关系，大大增加减少碳排放的影响。在这些努力中，将有贯穿整个开发链的培训，包括农民、学生、科学家，以及专门的材料和商品制造业劳动力发展工作。这一规划奖励期将使团队能够为推动发动机研究工作的应用开发特定的材料目标，并扩大我们与行业合作伙伴的互动，这些合作伙伴将参与推动研究目标，并在发动机中使用这些材料。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。

This Regional Innovation Engines Development Award focuses on building a circular bioeconomy for building materials and consumer goods in the southeastern United States. The project is designed to replace high environmental impact products with locally developed and grown perennial grasses that grow on marginal land, improve carbon sequestration, reduce imports, and have the potential to decarbonize multiple industries. The southeastern US has significant resources in underutilized farmable land, research in plant genomics, multiple groups engineering novel sustainable biomaterials, startup incubators, a mission to revitalize rural economies, and a future workforce across rural and urban areas, and graduates from universities, minority-serving colleges and smaller colleges. This integrated regional accelerator for research, training, outreach, and innovation will catalyze sweeping changes in manufacturing toward carbon neutrality. To achieve this goal, HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology, a nonprofit research, education, and economic development organization, will partner with a broad group of research and land grant institutions, including Alabama A&M University, Auburn University, North Carolina State University, Tennessee State University, Tuskegee University, University of Georgia, and the University of Tennessee, as well as industry partner Genera, farmers, Ag-tech entrepreneurs, and other collaborators in the agricultural and manufacturing sectors.This development award activity will span the entire pipeline for replacing existing carbon-intensive materials in manufacturing with perennial grass-derived materials. We will genetically customize these plants with genomics-enabled breeding to improve the utility of the biomass, develop new and improved biomaterials from these plants, and enable new industry applications using these materials. The research from the Engine will support manufacturers in increasing their sustainability by using these materials. When fully developed, they will have partnerships across multiple industries to greatly increase the impact on reducing carbon emissions. Woven into these efforts, there will be training across the entire development chain, including farmers, students, scientists, and dedicated workforce development efforts for material and goods manufacturing. This planning award period will enable the team to develop specific material targets for applications that will drive the research efforts of the Engine and expand our interactions with industry partners who will participate in driving the research aims and use these materials developed in the Engine.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.