SBIR Phase I: Protecting beneficial microbes from harmful stressors to enable their widespread use

The broader impact of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project is to enable the widespread adoption of beneficial microbes. Microbes are highly efficient, sustainable, and can replace chemical products when they’re able to be delivered in a live, viable form. In agriculture for example, switching from chemical fertilizers to biological fertilizers can reduce a significant amount (>500Mt) of CO2 emissions, while also reducing chemical fertilizer costs that can ultimately help reduce food prices to consumers. Beyond microbial fertilizers, there are many other applications ranging from cosmetics to healthcare that are ready to use either newly identified or already developed microbes, but only if they can be produced in a consistent and reliable manner. Unlocking microbial products will enable consumers to switch from chemically produced products to microbial products as a lower cost, more sustainable alternative. The proposed project aims to address the problem of microbial stability when exposed to stressors through a fundamental understanding of how the ingredients form and how they contribute to increases in microbial survival. The proposed R&D work will advance the understanding of these formulations to be used generally across any microbe, while also pushing the boundaries of physical protection to understand protection against common stressors such as heat, UV-light, shock and humidity by simulating real-world conditions. This will be accomplished by measuring a variety of physicochemical properties as well as viability using both established and newly developed tests. Furthermore, this work will explore the formation properties both on the small and large-scale of production to understand the fundamental dynamics of coating assembly. This innovative work will result in 1) a generalized process for formulating any microbe for protection and 2) an understanding of engineering parameters required to scale-up microbial production to enable the widespread adoption of beneficial microbes. 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.