NSF Postdoctoral Fellowship in Biology: Leveraging Biocoronas for Enhanced Agricultural Nanotechnology

Coreas, Roxana, Moreno Valley CA

Investigators

Abstract

This action funds an NSF Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Biology for FY 2023, Broadening Participation of Groups Underrepresented in Biology. The Fellowship supports a research and training plan for the Fellow that will increase the participation of groups underrepresented in biology. With climate change and population density on the rise, global food demand is projected to substantially increase. Nanobiotechnology offers sustainable approaches to help supply agricultural demands by adapting nano-sized materials to monitor plant health and to deliver nutrients or genetic material (RNA and DNA) to increase crop yields. Plants spontaneously react to nanomaterials by forming internal structures called biocoronas. Biocoronas can impact the effectiveness of nanomaterials for agricultural applications, such as blocking the release of genetic material for gene editing. To increase the potential and successful use of nanomaterials in crops, the Fellow will characterize biocoronas, and use this information to optimize gene-editing mediated by nanomaterials. The Fellow will also work to promote diversity at the host institution, using social media, and through outreach to migrant farm-worker communities. The Fellow aims to extract and identify the in planta biocorona composition from the surfaces of nanocarriers functionalized with genetic material, such as silencing RNA. Enriched proteins, lipids and metabolites will be identified through untargeted multi-omic approaches and datasets will be fed into machine learning algorithms that can predict the in planta biocorona formation in various agricultural crops. Moreover, these datasets will be used to develop gene-editing nanocarriers with specific surface chemistries, such as single protein coatings that enhance nanotechnology uptake efficacy and payload release for post-transcriptional gene silencing, which will be validated using RT-qPCR. The Fellow will enhance computational skills through training workshops, organize nanobiotechnology seminars held at the host campus, and lead informational sessions tailored to undergraduates from historically excluded groups interested in pursuing graduate degrees in STEM. The Fellow will disseminate the results of this project at specialized international scientific conferences and through social media platforms. Given that this project involves the development of agricultural biotechnologies, the Fellow plans to create a mentorship-based organization that conducts scientific outreach to students from migrant farm-worker communities, which has the benefit of exposing youth from undeserved neighborhoods to research directly relevant to their communities’ interests. 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.