Funding

Current & Recent

Ongoing Projects

Title: A Plant-Based Platform for Just in Time Medications
Goal: Production of life-saving therapeutic proteins in a short time in the extreme conditions and resource limited environment that will be encountered in deep space exploration.
Agency: Translational Research Institute for Space Health, Baylor College of Medicine/NASA

Title: Rapid scale up of COVID-19 biologics in mammalian and plant systems
Goal: Production and test COVID-19-related glycoprotein in mammalian and plant systems that enable rapid scale up.
Agency: UC Davis COVID-19 Research Accelerator Funding Track (CRAFT) Program,

Title: Center for Utilization of Biological Engineering in Space (CUBES)
Goal: Development of platform technologies for biomanufacturing on Mars to provide food, fuels, pharmaceuticals and shelters for colonists
Agency: National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)

Title: Advancing Diversity by Educating the Professors of Tomorrow (ADEPT)
Goal: Advancement and Achievement via Graduate Education and designing and building the Path-to-the-Professoriate (P2P) mentoring network.
Agency: University of California-Hispanic Serving Institutions Doctoral Diversity Initiative.

Title: Application of Optimization Tools to Achieve Low-Cost Cultivated Meat Production
Goal: This project is designed to provide preliminary data across a number of linked projects that can be used to demonstrate the feasibility of generating cultivated meat.
Agency: The Good Food Institute

Title: Scalable Plant-Based Production of Affordable Protein Drugs
Goal: The goal of this project is to develop, demonstrate, and optimize a new plant-based biologics biomanufacturing process that can universally be applied for the production of many orphan biologics.
Agency: National Science Foundation (PFI-RT)

Title: Growing Convergence Research: Laying the Scientific and Engineering Foundation for Sustainable Cultivated Meat Production
Goal: This proposal is focused on convergent research that encompasses the science, engineering, economics, sustainability, and consumer acceptance of cultivated meat production.
Agency: National Science Foundation (GCR)

Title: Technoeconomic Analysis and Engineering Design of Plant-Made Color Agent
Goal: To develop a technoeconomic model to evaluate the capital requirements and cost of goods for a plant-made colorant
Agency: Private Funding

Title: Promoting health and economic development in the Sundarban region of India through improved nutritional and agricultural education and outreach
Goal: To design and implement a Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education Program based on best-practice crop management techniques applicable to the climate-challenged regions
Agency: University Outreach and International Programs (UOIP) and Global HealthShare

Title: Growth, viability, stability, purification, and characterization of rice-calli expressing recombinant protein
Goal: To develop appropriate conditions and factors for viability, growth, induction, stability, purification, and characterization of rice-calli expressing target molecule
Agency: Kirin Ltd.

Title: Planning Grant: Engineering Research Center for Global Biodefense (PERC-GB)
Goal: Development and implementation of convergent technologies capable of providing detection, diagnostics, and medical countermeasures to protect people, animals, and plants against biological and chemical threats.
Agency: National Science Foundation

Title: The BioIndustrial Manufacturing and Design Ecosystem (BioMADE) Institute
Goal: Community-focused bioindustrial manufacturing innovation institute dedicated to accelerating biomanufacturing for the next-generation bioeconomy
Agency: Department of Defense (UC Davis is the one of the academic governing members)

Title: Simulating Manufacturing Scale Aerobic Fermentation in Pressurized Miniature Bioreactor
Goal: Evaluate a pressurized scale-down model for fermentation development to determine if it can replace more costly intermediate scale fermentation systems
Agency: The Bioindustrial Manufacturing and Design Ecosystem (BioMADE) Institute

Recently Completed Projects

Title: Bioprinting Transgenic Plant Cells for Chemical and Biological Countermeasure Production
Goal: To determine the feasibility of formulating transgenic plant cells into a 3D printable bioink
Agency: Lawrence Livermore National Security LLC

Title: Production of Heterologous Protein in Plants
Goal: Designing and developing stronger gene constructs to produce therapeutic target proteins.
Agency: Ajinomoto Co., Inc.

Title: Glycan Modulation of Pharmaceutical Glycoproteins by In Vitro Enzymatic Approaches
Goal: Impact of glycosylation on plant-made bioscavengers
Agency: Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA)

Title: Technoeconomic Analysis of Plant-Made Endolysins for Food Safety
Goal: To develop a technoeconomic model to evaluate the capital requirements and cost of goods for a plant-made food safety additive
Agency: UC Davis Innovation Institute for Food and Health

Title: U.S.-Pakistan Center for Advanced Studies in Agriculture and Food Security (USPCAS-AFS)
Goal: Developing climate-resilient plant-based recombinant subunit vaccine against Foot and Mouth Disease for cattle
Agency: United States Agency for International Development (USAID)

Title: Preparing Engineering Graduate Students for the 21st Century
Goal: A graduate training program to help diversify our engineering graduate programs
Agency: National Science Foundation (NSF)

Title: UC Davis ADVANCE:  Institutional Transformation to Build and Sustain a Diverse Community of Innovative STEM Scholars
Goal: Programs for recruitment, retention and promotion of women STEM faculty
Agency: National Science Foundation (NSF)

Title: Promoting health and economic development in the Sundarban region of India through improved nutritional and agricultural education and outreach
Goal: To design and implement a Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education Program based on best-practice crop management techniques applicable to the climate-challenged regions
Agency: University Outreach and International Programs (UOIP) and Global HealthShare

Title: Novel Bioreactor-Based Systems for Producing Ebola Monoclonal Antibodies in Nicotiana benthamiana Plant Cell Suspension Culture
Goal: Development of a plant cell bioreactor system for production of ZMapp monoclonal antibodies
Agency: National Science Foundation (NSF)

Title: In Vitro Evaluation of a Plant-Made Alpha-1-Antitrypsin
Goal: Analysis of neutrophil elastase inhibition of plant-made AAT, comparison with human plasma derived AAT
Agency: Alpha-1 Foundation

Title: Plant Based Manufacturing of Orphan Drug Human Biobetter Alpha-1-Antitrypsin
Goal: Downstream process development and techno-economic modeling for transient production of alpha-1 antitrypsin in Nicotiana benthamiana
Agency: National Science Foundation (NSF), Partnerships for Innovation: Accelerating Innovation Research- Technology Transfer (PFI: AIR-TT)

Title: Dynamic social networks: from research to marketplace
Goal: To develop collaboration software platform for content sharing within and among organizations
Agency: National Science Foundation (NSF), I-CORPS

Title: Recombinant BChE Production by Transient Agroinfiltration in Nicotiana benthamiana using a CMV Based Expression System
Goal: To develop in vitro sialylation technology for plant expressed proteins and to demonstrate proof of concept using butyrylcholinesterase (BChE) produced by transient agroinfiltration in wild‐type Nicotiana benthamiana
Agency: Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)

Title: Rwanda Dairy Competitiveness Program II (RDCP II)
Goal: To serve as technical assistance group to help Land O’Lakes, Inc., International Development (LOL-ID) advance the goals of their RDCP II to identify key sources of morbidity and mortality on smallholder dairy farms and in-country training workshops, specifically focused on the animal health side of farm-management practices to build the capacity
Agency: United States Agency for International Development (USAID)/Land O Lakes-International Development (LOL-ID)

Title: Viability, growth, stability and expression study of formulated and lyophilized rice calli (CellBrix) expressing recombinant butyrylcholinesterase (rBChE)
Goal: Production of recombinant butyrylcholinesterase (rBChE) in rice cell suspension culture and excretion of rBChE from metabolically-regulated transgenic cell cultures
Agency: Leidos, Inc.

Title: Alternative Manufacturing Processes for Recombinant Human Butyrylcholinesterase
Goal: Production of recombinant butyrylcholinesterase (rBChE) in rice cell suspension culture
Agency: SAIC, Inc.