MsRI-EW: Planning the Infrastructural Needs to Meet National Research Demand and Support the United States’ Leadership in Biomanufacturing

Georgia Tech Research Corporation, Atlanta GA

Investigators

Abstract

The recent global pandemic has highlighted some critical areas for improvement in delivering safe and effective therapeutics. An infrastructure that enables rapid, on-demand manufacturing of emerging therapies is critical to maintaining the health of the American people. This conference will bring together representatives from the public and private sectors. The conference will investigate all major aspects of vaccine and therapeutic development and production. The objective is to develop a roadmap to drive innovative biomanufacturing research and development. Issues to be addressed include infrastructure to characterize products for clinical trials and regulatory approval; cyberinfrastructure to provide secure communication and storage of research data; artificial intelligence and machine learning tools to accelerate research progress; and automation technologies to enable new, disruptive manufacturing technologies for vaccines and therapeutics. The conference will have virtual sessions covering (1) cell/gene manufacturing, (2) emerging vaccine manufacturing, and (3) data integration, analytics, security, and management. Experts within each session will represent clinical research and application, academia, governmental agencies, and the industrial value chain. Cross-cutting topics will be discussed in terms of needed infrastructure to support accelerated and expanded research efforts. These cross-cutting topics include Scale-up, Automation, Supply Chain, and Education and Workforce. 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.