The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has recently awarded funding to the University of Texas at Austin for research in support of the Living Foundries: 1000 Molecules program.
The goal of the program is to develop a first-of-its-kind biotechnology infrastructure to provide new materials, flexible capabilities, and manufacturing paradigms for national security and public health.
As a demonstration of the functionality and flexibility of the infrastructure being developed, the program aims to generate 1000 unique molecules and chemical building blocks of relevance to the Department of Defense by the end of the program’s period of performance.
The contract is for a base award of $1,331,076 with a Phase 2 option valued at $769,816.
Other organizations previously funded via the Living Foundries: 1000 Molecules program in the past year include Duke University, 20n Labs, Inc., MIT, Twist Bioscience Corporation, Harvard, University of Colorado, and the University of Illinois.