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The center’s interdisciplinary approach has been funded primarily by the National Science Foundation (NSF), the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), the Navel Research Labs Science Foundation of Arizona (SFAz). In addition, there are state seed funds for research efforts likely to attract major funding.

NSF funding is being used to explore the underlying photochemistry and photobiochemistry involved in biological solar energy capture (photosynthesis) as well as the development of new instrumentation for this type of analysis. DOE funding is being used in production of new electro-catalysts for hydrogen production. SFAz funds are being used to develop methods to probe both the structure and dynamics of chromatin. The state funding is being used to develop light directed methods of patterned chemistry, in which hundreds of thousands or millions of molecules are synthesized and tested in parallel.

Projects are ongoing in the areas of artificial antibodies, drug mimicry, and catalyst development. There are also state start-up funds that are being used to develop programs in molecular evolution, basic exploration of nonnatural protein folds, and de novo generation of enzymes via molecular selection strategies.

The center also coordinates a $3 million Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship (IGERT) from the NSF to train graduate students at the interface between biology, chemistry and engineering.

 

 

 

 

 

The center is building several internal collaborations with ASU faculty in life sciences, physical sciences and engineering to further develop research in the areas of ultra fast laser microscopy, single molecule spectroscopy, molecular evolution and biosensor development, areas in which ASU is likely to win future NIH and NSF funding. Joint projects are on-going with Barrows Neurological Institute and the National Cancer Institute to apply our molecular level technologies to biomedical problems.

Biosensors and catalysts are likely to have the most commercial potential. Center researchers have worked with Lockheed Martin to develop fluorescent protein-based sensors. The center holds one patent in this area and has several patents pending.

The Biodesign Institute is also partnering with a national biotech company in an effort to advance research in areas including disease diagnosis and prevention. The CombiMatrix Group, which is part of the Acacia Research Corporation, has developed novel semiconductor-based tools for use in identifying and determining the roles of genes, gene mutations and proteins. CombiMatrix and the Center are collaborating to develop a peptide array synthesizer utilizing CombiMatrix's proprietary virtual-flask technology. The collaboration is aimed at developing a peptide synthesizer that will build arrays of polypeptides on CombiMatrix CustomArrays. Such polypeptide arrays are useful in a variety of areas including immunology research, drug discovery and diagnostics.