SBIR Phase II: A Cryo-EM Automation and Intelligence Platform for Drug Discovery

Health Technology Innovations, Inc., Portland OR

Investigators

Abstract

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II project is to improve disease research and drug discovery. Cryogenic Electron Microscopy (cryo-EM) is one of the most impactful and vital tools of biological structure analysis today. The proposed project improves the current methods to achieve better accuracy and productivity, with faster user training. The proposed project improves imaging by cryo-EM. The images currently generated by cryo-EM are highly noisy and thus requires extensive processing to build recognizable structures (proteins and others). Single-particle cryo-EM is a method that produces images of individual particles and can potentially analyze biological structures at the single-molecule level. This project uses Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning (AI/ML) techniques to mitigate the issues. AI/ML algorithms can automate the workflow, facilitating quality data and the development of 3D models. 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.