| NSF Org: |
TI Translational Impacts |
| Recipient: |
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| Initial Amendment Date: | October 13, 2015 |
| Latest Amendment Date: | October 13, 2015 |
| Award Number: | 1562925 |
| Award Instrument: | Standard Grant |
| Program Manager: |
Steven Konsek
TI Translational Impacts TIP Directorate for Technology, Innovation, and Partnerships |
| Start Date: | October 15, 2015 |
| End Date: | March 31, 2017 (Estimated) |
| Total Intended Award Amount: | $50,000.00 |
| Total Awarded Amount to Date: | $50,000.00 |
| Funds Obligated to Date: |
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| History of Investigator: |
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| Recipient Sponsored Research Office: |
77 MASSACHUSETTS AVE CAMBRIDGE MA US 02139-4301 (617)253-1000 |
| Sponsor Congressional District: |
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| Primary Place of Performance: |
77 Massachusetts Ave Cambridge MA US 02139-4304 |
| Primary Place of
Performance Congressional District: |
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| Unique Entity Identifier (UEI): |
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| Parent UEI: |
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| NSF Program(s): | I-Corps |
| Primary Program Source: |
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| Program Reference Code(s): | |
| Program Element Code(s): |
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| Award Agency Code: | 4900 |
| Fund Agency Code: | 4900 |
| Assistance Listing Number(s): | 47.084 |
ABSTRACT
The potential to solve many of mankind's most pressing challenges including the needs for alternative fuels, enhancing oil recovery, and even treating cancer could involve engineering the numerous bacteria currently beyond one's reach. There are many types of bacteria that can be grown in the lab but their potential impact on people's lives has not been realized. New tools are needed to unlock bacteria?s true potential to solve many challenges of interest to mankind. Creating tools to accelerate discovery of new cancer treatments, alternative fuels, or low cost biomaterials will significantly impact human life. Population growth and increasing lifespans are putting ever increasing demands on the environment, driving need for alternative sources of fuels, food, and medicines. Bacteria have been a bit neglected as sources for innovation; however, they already have the internal machinery to help do industrial processes in a fast and efficient manner.
Pulsed electric fields (i.e. electroporation) can be used to deliver genetic material into many types of cells including bacteria. The goal of this proposal is to substantially expand the successful application of pulsed electric fields to bacteria and enable discovery of new applications in genetic engineering and synthetic biology. A major limitation of synthetic biology is the inability to incorporate genetic material into many bacteria due to the challenge of permeating the cell envelope while maintaining high cell viability. This team's goal is to reduce the time required to develop tools to genetically manipulate bacteria from months or even years to days. This I-Corps team has developed a proof-of-concept microfluidic device to enable the characterization of the critical electric field for bacterial electroporation under specific experimental conditions in a single experiment. The team is devising a technique to test several thousand unique conditions within a single day, spanning the entire parametric space. This will be done using a microfluidic platform, or several in parallel, to test small aliquots of cells at varying experimental conditions. Therefore, the proposed microfluidic system enables quantification of the critical electroporation parameters in a single experiment, which would otherwise require months of experimentation. The proposed innovation will allow two significant advancements: 1) the ability to quickly determine high yield electroporation conditions and 2) the ability to utilize many of the more than 10,000 bacterial strains that have been heretofore intractable or difficult to genetically manipulate.
PUBLICATIONS PRODUCED AS A RESULT OF THIS RESEARCH
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PROJECT OUTCOMES REPORT
Disclaimer
This Project Outcomes Report for the General Public is displayed verbatim as submitted by the Principal Investigator (PI) for this award. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this Report are those of the PI and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation; NSF has not approved or endorsed its content.
The goal of this project was to enable new applications for bacteria in genetic engineering and synthetic biology. The team sought to develop and evaluate the market potential of an electroporation assay technology that facilitates the exploration of microorganisms that are currently considered difficult to genetically engineer for a variety of industrial and biomedical applications. In electroporation, a high electric field is used to open pores in cells (including bacteria) that allow foreign nucleic acids to enter the cell for re-programming. However, it is well know that most of the bacteria that can be grown in the laboratory cannot be genetically engineered using traditional electroporation or other methods. We believed that a platform that could rapidly and quantitatively determine optimal conditions for genetic engineering via electroporation would accelerate the development of novel bacteria for applications ranging from treatments for diseases to bacterial strains that can clean oil spills. In conjunction with this effort we interviewed more than one hundred individuals representing more than forty companies seeking to leverage synthetic biology in bacteria for such applications. We found out that even though genetic engineering of new bacteria is of interest, it is not the biggest problem that these organizations face. Alternatively, we learned that there are other problems related to the delivery of nucleic acids to bacteria that are more pressing. As a result we have pivoted our research and development efforts in order to address more urgent limitations for genetic engineering of bacteria.
Over the course of this effort, in addition to our market research, we made several scientific and technological advances that have resulted in three accepted journal articles, two patent applications, and numerous conference presentations. Results of this work directly resulted in additional funding from the National Science Foundation through the Partnerships for Innovation: Accelerating Innovation Research- Technology Translation (PFI: AIR-TT) initiative. Finally, our efforts have also led to the formation of a company that will seek to commercialize the technology developed as a result of this award.
Last Modified: 07/17/2017
Modified by: Cullen R Buie
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