Opportunity

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An NSF X-Labs Mission in this Topic must be transformative, accelerating breakthroughs in our understanding of the relationship between sequence and function, and catalyzing capabilities to engineer proteins or entire genomes with exceptional new capabilities. Successful teams will develop platform technologies, demonstrate measurable impact on the U.S. biotechnology landscape, and position their technologies for widespread use by overcoming technical barriers that limit implementation and investment. Although NSF X-Labs in this space will have widespread applicability, each team should identify 2-3 high-utility domains and should eventually establish projects in them. Teams proposing to this topic should identify how their approach to biosafety and biosecurity is tailored to their Mission and its pilot application domains including an assessment of dangerous gain-of-function and an accompanying plan to mitigate unintended consequences