EPA Announces Winner of EcoTox Target Challenge for Developing Biotechnology to Support Screening Chemicals for Ecological Hazards

Challenge winner, BioSpyder Technologies, Inc., developed and demonstrated a rapid, high-quality, low-cost method for measuring targeted gene expression in aquatic organisms

WASHINGTON (March 25, 2022) - Today, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced BioSpyder Technologies, Inc. won the EcoTox Target Challenge, an international competition to develop and demonstrate high-quality, low-cost technologies to help screen chemicals for ecological hazards. BioSpyder earned the prize of $300,000.

“BioSpyder’s biotechnology, developed in response to this challenge, is ready to be used by EPA to more rapidly evaluate biological effects uniquely relevant to ecosystem health, such as disruption of photosynthesis in plants or molting in invertebrates,” said Chris Frey, Deputy Assistant Administrator for Science Policy in EPA’s Office of Research and Development. “This innovative chemical screening technology will enable EPA and others to obtain data representative of plant and animal diversity, which will better inform effective approaches to protecting the environment.”

The Challenge addressed the need for high-quality, low-cost technologies to evaluate global gene expression in samples from four organisms frequently used to assess aquatic toxicity. These technologies provide a foundation for on-going development of innovative methods for evaluating the ecological hazards of chemicals at a cost and scale that allows analysis of thousands to tens of thousands of samples per year.

EPA, in partnership with Syngenta, Dow, Environment and Climate Change Canada, the US Army Engineer Research and Development Center, and the European Commission Joint Research Centre, launched the EcoTox Target Challenge in January 2020.

In November last year, BioSpyder Technologies, Inc. was awarded a contract to perform High Throughput Compatible Gene Expression Profiling for Species of Ecotoxicological Relevance by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Center for Computational Toxicology and Exposure (CCTE). A five-year contract that has a maximum total contract value of $9.5 million, it is the latest in a series of contracts awarded to BioSpyder from the EPA for HTT research since 2015. Three other contracts were awarded to BioSpyder, worth up to $5 million, $10 million, and $25 million.