{"response":{"award":[{"abstractText":"The broader impact of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project is to provide safe, reliable, sustainable medicines with molecular medicine farming. Indoor farms are insulated from the impacts of weather and climate and are usually located near population centers, reducing transportation costs and fossil fuel use. The economic advantages include low-cost medicines using plants with minimal pesticides and herbicides, and with 90% lower water consumption. Plant-based pharmaceuticals markets are expected to grow yearly more than 20%. Producing medicines in plants will accelerate pharmaceutical development, due to the speed and consistency of processing plants in well-regulated controlled environments. This project will develop and demonstrate a real-time plant foliage optical inspection system that will predict pharmaceutical production in crops and signal plant stress, enabling the grower to remediate defects and optimize production. These advantages of molecular farming can be used more generally for crop foods. \r\n\r\nThe proposed project advances an in-process precise chemical imager for two-dimensional understanding of where, how and at what rate protein and stressor generation occurs in the leaves of Nicotiana benthamiana plants. The imager method analyzes medical protein production and food crop growth. The test plan will modify production variables, including specialized bacteria introduced into the plants to stimulate them to generate the proteins, to enable fingerprinting the generated plant stresses and protein productivity responses. Trial cycles of two weeks will permit rapid development of algorithms to model production rates and optimization for commercial use.\r\n\r\nThis 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.","activeAwd":"false","agency":"NSF","awardAgencyCode":"4900","awardee":"SPEKCITON BIOSCIENCES LLC","awardeeAddress":"2509 BERWYN RD","awardeeCity":"WILMINGTON","awardeeCountryCode":"US","awardeeDistrict":"00","awardeeDistrictCode":"DE00","awardeeName":"SPEKCITON BIOSCIENCES LLC","awardeePhone":"3023532694","awardeeStateCode":"DE","awardeeZipCode":"198103526","cfdaNumber":"47.041, 47.084","date":"11/17/2021","dirAbbr":"TIP","divAbbr":"TI","estimatedTotalAmt":"255482","expDate":"12/31/2022","fundAgencyCode":"4900","fundProgramName":"STTR Phase I","fundsObligated":["FY 2022 = $255,482.00"],"fundsObligatedAmt":"255482","histAwd":"false","id":"2111730","initAmendmentDate":"11/17/2021","latestAmendmentDate":"11/17/2021","managingPec":"150500","orgCodeDir":"15000000","orgCodeDiv":"15030000","orgLongName":"Directorate for Technology, Innovation, and Partnerships","orgLongName2":"Translational Impacts","orgUrl":"https://beta.nsf.gov/tip/ti","parentUeiNumber":"","pdPIName":"Anthony S Ragone","perfAddress":"2509 Berwyn Rd","perfCity":"Wilmington","perfCountryCode":"US","perfDistrict":"00","perfDistrictCode":"DE00","perfLocation":"SPEKCITON BIOSCIENCES LLC","perfStateCode":"DE","perfZipCode":"198103526","pi":["Anthony S Ragone ragoneas01@gmail.com"],"piEmail":"ragoneas01@gmail.com","piFirstName":"Anthony","piId":"270028062","piLastName":"Ragone","piMiddeInitial":"S","poEmail":"epiersto@nsf.gov","poName":"Erik Pierstorff","poPhone":"7032920000","primaryProgram":["01002223DB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT"],"progEleCode":"150500","program":"AGRICULTURAL BIOTECHNOLOGY, EXP PROG TO STIM COMP RES","progRefCode":"9109, 9150","projectOutComesReport":"
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NSF STTR Phase I (2111730)” The RCPA was developed and demonstrated as a portable multispectral imager – the Rapid Crop Performance Analyzer to support improved crop yields, food quality and safety by rapid detection of plant foliar stressors. The rapid scanning and detection (< 20 seconds) will allow real time signaling to growers of the types and locations of stress defects. The RCPA will be engineered further for a Phase II project for crop food inspection in Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA). The RCPA will aim to detect real-time early-stage abiotic and biotic stressors, thus enabling crop food growers to take immediate actions to mitigate the stressors. We made key improvements in the design and methods of inspecting plants during Phase I and are filing patent claims for merging deep ultra-violet (UV) and visible + near infra-red (VNIR) light spectral imaging to provide an “early warning system” for undesirable microbes and environmental conditions.

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The RCPA demonstrated excellent potential as a portable and potentially automated real time foliar optical inspection system for biopharma in 2111730.  It employed rapid spectral imaging of leaves to determine plant photochemical and structural changes caused by agrobacteria carrying genes. These genes induced protein production (recombinant protein). The usual lab assay requires harvesting the plant leaves at the end of a week-long growth cycle to chemically assay protein concentrations. RCPA demonstrated we could predict the protein development and potentially replace the slower (hours-days) lab assay.  

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We evaluated this preprototype RCPA and compared two stress responses: the agrobacterial infusion under two grow light levels (normal and 2-fold more intense). The plant (A. tumefaciens) also was infused with 3 different concentrations of agrobacterial solutions (0.0625, 0.125 and 0.25 concentration fractions). The trials of the RCPA trial was repeated twice: first we determined how to improve the RCPA sampling rate and precision by 1) increasing the aperture size  >  4-fold the original and 2) adapting more sensitive monochromatic cameras that allowed us to eliminate a UV filter(the camera quantum efficiency > 300 nm provide exciting light (265-275  nm) filtering. (RaspberryPi  HQ and/or FLIR Blackfly cameras); The trials demonstrated:    

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  -  a minimum time to acquire a sample (< 20 sec)

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  - Measurement resolution (coefficient of variation of 5-7% or less)

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  - use of blob modelling tool to differentiate spectral image texture changes in ChlA   

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    fluorescence emission

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 -  higher power UVC LED 275 nm (120 mW) to increase fluorescence intensity and 

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    sample rates

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-       LED wavelengths, power and presentation to plants

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Going forward, to meet CEA needs, we’ll determine any further modifications in the RCPA module engineering essentials for a commercial prototype to test at growers:

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-       Demonstrate optics with 97% uniform illumination intensity at sample      

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-        Low-profile imaging module with height of 20 cm or less for ease of use within the crop growth area.

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\n\t\t\t\t \tLast Modified: 04/03/2023
\n\t\t\t\t\tModified by: Anthony S Ragone

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","publicAccessMandate":"1","startDate":"12/01/2021","title":"STTR Phase I: Biophotonic plant foliage optical inspection system for improved indoor molecular farming of plant-based medicines","transType":"Standard Grant","ueiNumber":"FNP5D4F1ZHL7"}],"metadata":{"offset":0,"rpp":25,"totalCount":1}}}