DURIP High-Resolution Mass Spectrometry for Biocontainment Research & Education
Abstract
The U.S. Navy and Marine Corps have an outstanding need to sense emerging threats,-particularly of biological or chemical origin, at land and at sea. Invasive species, infectious-disease, nerve agents, and explosives are representative and pressing examples of threats that can-affect warfighters and the environments that they operate in. This challenge presents an-opportunity to design and deploy live biological sensing technologies. These living sensors could-harness the wide array of molecular recognition and actuating capabilities that nature evolved-using biomacromolecules, with the aid of genetic engineering to make the sensors fit for purpose.-However, an unmet need for such technologies to be deployed controllably is the design of-intrinsic biological containment strategies; these should restrict the proliferation of genetically-modified microbes to target environments for defined timescales. In the absence of these tools,-we risk the uncontrolled spread of engineered microorganisms that are challenging to surveil and-that possess capabilities of interest to warfighters. To mitigate this risk, technical and conceptual-innovations are required at this intersection of synthetic biology and biosecurity. To this end, the-Kunjapur group is pursuing multiple innovative DoD-backed projects in which microbes are-designed to rely on chemicals that they will not find in nature. However, a major obstacle in the-workflows of the group is the inability to identify the chemical intermediates and byproducts that-candidate engineered microbes are producing. This hinders the ability of the Kunjapur group # as-well as the broader field # to understand the natural and engineered chemical conversion-processes that affect the practical implementation of biocontainment.-Here, we request funds for a state-of-the-art Agilent 6546 Liquid Chromatography /-Quadrupole-Time of Flight Mass Spectrometry (LC-QTOF) System for High-Resolution Mass-Spectrometry that enables untargeted metabolomic analysis. Untargeted metabolomics are an-important and premier tool for determining the biochemicals formed by cells when authentic-chemical standards are not available or when supplied compounds are being converted by cells to-unknown products. This system will dramatically enhance the activities of a project funded by-the Office of Naval Research Young Investigator Program, and it will also be transformative for-other projects at the University of Delaware that are supported by the Department of Defense.-The PI, Dr. Aditya Kunjapur, is funded through an ONR YIP (Award N00014-22-1-2536,-Program Officer Dr. Kristy Hentchel) for #Programming synthetic auxotrophy to depend on-breakdown products of biodegradable polymers.# Dr. Kunjapur is also a sub-awardee and major-contributor to a biocontainment related award funded by the DARPA BTO Ceres program-(#IRISS: Interkingdom soil safety sensors#, Award D24AC00011-00). Dr. Kunjapur also has an-award funded by the Strategic Environmental Research and Development Program (SERDP) on-the design of sustainable production of energetics that would enormously benefit from this-instrument (#Designing a high-throughput cell-based screen for N-oxygenase engineering#,-WP24-C2-4296). Finally, we will make the instrument available upon appropriate training to-other labs in the College of Engineering, the College of Arts and Sciences, and the College of-Agriculture and Natural Resources to help support multiple Defense-related projects and-associated education at the University of Delaware.
Document Details
- Document Type
- DoD Grant Award
- Publication Date
- Jan 13, 2025
- Source ID
- N000142512143
Entities
People
- Aditya M Kunjapur
Organizations
- Office of Naval Research
- United States Navy
- University of Delaware