FEC: Plastic-based Nano-Systems for High Throughput Multi-omic Biological Studies

This Focused EPSCoR Collaborations (FEC) project seeks to advance research on the design, fabrication, and delivery to the research community of new nanoscale tools with compelling applications in a variety of biological discovery projects within the participating jurisdictions as well as across the USA. An example is understanding the amino acid composition of a particular protein molecule at the single molecule level. The nanoscale technology developed will be reconfigurable to analyze other biological polymers, such as RNA and DNA, by a relatively simple “reprogramming” step. This project is conducted by a team from two EPSCoR jurisdictions (Kansas and Louisiana) with expertise in micro-and nanoscale fabrication and device assembly (Louisiana), and in bioanalytical chemistry, biomedical engineering, biology, and bioinformatics (Kansas). This research program will assist in workforce development by training students to become effective researchers in a multidisciplinary environment accomplished by having researchers in both jurisdictions working within a collaborative ecosystem in biotechnology. The goal of this project will be to develop a mixed-scale (nm → µm) single-molecule platform that can be “programmed” for any type of large biomolecule input by simply changing the identity of a bioenzyme used to disassemble a biopolymer into its constituent monomer units (amino acids for proteins). The monomer units will be detected and identified using label-free resistive pulse sensing (RPS) and nano-electrochromatography (nano-EC). The initial driving application is single-molecule protein sequencing enabled by peptide fingerprints following proteolytic digestion of an input protein and exopeptidase digestion of the resultant peptides into amino acids. The project will use artificial intelligence (AI) for enabling manufacturing and single-molecule identification. The team is a collaboration between several institutions: Louisiana State University, Southern University and A&M College, and University of Kansas including University of Kansas Medical Center. The award will support students and postdoctoral researchers, strengthen shared facilities and research capacity across EPSCoR jurisdictions, while establishing a sustainable interdisciplinary partnership focused on biotechnology. 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.