A research group that involves Cal Poly Pomona and UC Riverside was awarded a $22 million grant to establish a biofoundry for “extreme and exceptional fungi, archaea, and bacteria,” or ExFAB.
The two Inland Empire universities are collaborators on the project, while UC Santa Barbara taking lead, according to a news release from Cal Poly Pomona.
It’s the first joint UC-CSU team to focus on the study of extreme organisms, the release says. The organisms are capable of living in extreme heat, cold, pressure and other “chemical and physical extremes.”
We are hopeful we’ll be able to use products from the organisms in biotechnology or bioremediation, says Jamie Snyder, an associate professor of biological sciences at Cal Poly Pomona and a co-principal investigator on the grant.
The grant from the National Science Foundation will allow Cal Poly Pomona to purchase a DNA sequencer and a TapeStation, equipment that can check the quality of the DNA before it goes into the sequencer, the release says. They will be the first on-campus.
Cultivation of the extreme microbes will be done at UCSB and UCR where automation and robotics will handle cultures. “When ExFAB users need to sequence the extremophile DNA,” that will be done at Cal Poly Pomona, according to the release.
“A major component [of the ExFAB project] is to involve graduate students from across all of the CSUs and diversify the biotech workforce,” Snyder says in the release. The educational program will be piloted at CPP. Students will be trained on the robotic equipment at UCR or UCSB as well as the high throughput DNA sequencer.
“Students will be able to learn more about the biotech industry, participate in workshops, and present at symposiums, preparing them to succeed in the STEM workforce,” Snyder says.
