I-Corps: High-throughput screening platform for complex visual properties

Award ID: 2230599

The broader impact/commercial potential of this I-Corps project is the development of a technology that enables rapid and cost-effective engineering of proteins and cells. The technology has the potential to accelerate the development of many types of biological products such as protein-based biosensors, enzymes, therapeutic proteins, and genetic circuits. The technology could results in more environmentally-friendly methods of producing existing materials and faster development of pharmaceuticals. The bio-pharma industry suffers from slow, expensive, and risky development of therapeutics and diagnostics; The drugs that reach the market often require a lengthy discovery and development process that takes over a decade with an average cost of $1-2 billion. This platform seeks to develop bio-products more efficiently. This I-Corps project seeks to develop a microscopy-based bioengineering platform that can design spatial and temporal properties of proteins and cells at unprecedented speed. This platform may increase the speed of innovation by several magnitudes using custom computer vision software and a light-mediated, single-cell retrieval method to conduct single-cell level screening. The screening process and analyses can be tuned to fit the needs of a specific workflow in different experimental contexts. The platform's utility is demonstrated by optimizing fluorescent protein probes, common visualization tools used by biologists. Using this platform, millions protein variants are tested and variants are identified with the most stable fluorescence output. 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.

NSF Program Director: Ruth Shuman