Novel approaches to identifying proteins vulnerable to elevated temperature in crops

OVERVIEW

The Gates Foundation, the Seeker for this Wazoku Crowd Challenge, seeks innovative methods to identify plant proteins most vulnerable to elevated temperature, aiming to develop targets for the engineering of resilient crops important to smallholder farmers in low- and middle-income countries.

This Challenge has two main goals. First, Solvers must develop an approach to identifying thermosensitive proteins using protein structure modeling. Second, they need to use this approach to create a list of proteins with the highest potential for structural instability under elevated temperature. Solvers can use several crops to develop their approach, including those with lower temperature optima (such as common bean or wheat) and those with higher optima (such as cowpea and millets) as well as known extremophiles.

Your IP Rights are protected in this Prize Challenge; the Gates Foundation must award you to obtain them.

The best solution has the opportunity to win an Award of $25,000 for meeting all solution requirements. The Challenge requires a written proposal to be submitted and Awards will be contingent upon the theoretical evaluation of the proposal by the Gates Foundation against the Solution Requirements. To receive an Award, Solvers are required to grant non-exclusive rights to the Intellectual Property (IP) in their proposed solution.

There is no assignment of IP Rights with this challenge. Solvers will retain all rights to any proposal not Awarded.

Gates Foundation Global Access and Intellectual Property. 

Global Access means the knowledge and information gained from the awarded solutions will be made available and accessible at an affordable price to people most in need within developing countries.

The management of intellectual property rights are likely to play an important role in achieving the goals of the Challenge, you should seriously consider your willingness to submit a solution in compliance with the Gates Foundation Global Access Statement which can be found here: https://www.gatesfoundation.org/How-We-Work/General-Information/Global-Access-Statement.

Due diligence activities will be conducted against solutions of interest which may include inquiry into your:

1) Freedom to operate and ability to freely use and acquire needed background technology; and

2) Commitment to promote the utilization, commercialization and availability of your solution for public benefit.

Submissions to this Challenge must be received by 11:59 PM (US Eastern Time) on February 3rd, 2025.

Login or register your interest to start solving.

Would you like to learn more about the Evaluators' requirements in this Challenge? Register for our Challenge Space for the Novel approaches to identifying proteins vulnerable to elevated temperature in crops Challenge now:

ABOUT THE SEEKER & ELIGIBILITY

For nearly 25 years, the Gates Foundation has been committed to fighting poverty, disease, and inequity around the world. Guided by the belief that every life has equal value, the foundation works to create a world in which every person has the opportunity to live a healthy, productive life. In low- and middle-income countries, it focuses on improving people’s health and giving them the chance to lift themselves out of hunger and extreme poverty.

Employees of the Gates Foundation are ineligible to receive an award for this Challenge.

As stated in the Overview, Solvers should seriously consider your willingness to submit a solution in compliance with the Gates Foundation Global Access Statement which can be found here: https://www.gatesfoundation.org/How-We-Work/General-Information/Global-Access-Statement.

Find out more about participation in Wazoku Crowd Challenges.

THE CHALLENGE

Background

Global temperatures continue to rise, both on average and as the increasing frequency and severity of acute high temperature occurrences.

This phenomenon causes many socio-economic problems; one of them is the threat to food security. This is particularly true in low-income countries of the global South where greater climate instability is expected to have a more devastating impact on the food supply.

All crops, including those important as food sources, have a temperature optimum for growth and development. Temperatures rising above this optimum compromise crop productivity and eventually result in crop failure.

At the core of crop sensitivity to temperatures above their optimum lies impaired protein function. Consistent with the whole plant response, proteins have a temperature optimum for their proper function, and constantly rising temperatures lead to increasing deficiency in protein activity.

One way to address this problem is to engineer crops whose proteins will be more thermo-resistant and capable of maintaining activity at elevated temperatures. However, this can only be achieved if we’re able to identify proteins that are most vulnerable to increased temperature.

Recently, some important targets that could be modified for increased thermal tolerance of crops have been identified (for example, Rubisco Activase). However, this information comes from individual biochemical and physiological studies; there is no clear understanding of the scope of protein thermo-instability in crop plants at a proteome level that would allow a more durable strategy for crop improvement.  

At the same time, recent developments in plant genomics, proteomics, and protein structure modeling using Machine Learning and AI approaches can make the identification of temperature sensitive proteins in crops more systematic and scalable.

The Challenge

The objective of this Challenge is to develop a protein structure approach that would identify crop proteins most vulnerable to temperature increase.

The proteome of many plants is known, including those adapted to temperate environments (for example, common wheat, Triticum aestivum; and common bean, Phaseolus vulgaris), those adapted to higher temperature environments (for example, cowpea, Vigna unguiculata; and millets, Paniceae sp.), and extreme temperatures (so-called extremophiles, such as a variety of resurrection plants).

We envision that these proteomes can serve as a starting point to identifying proteins that would be sensitive to high temperature—and we want to emphasize that we’re only interested in approaches that rely solely of protein structure, not their function (as derived from physiological and biochemical studies).

We further anticipate that the proposed algorithm will be applied to the proteome of wheat and common bean to identify the most vulnerable temperature-sensitive proteins, with appropriate rationale justifying this selection (supported by physiological and/or biochemical data, if available).  The number of identified proteins should be within the limits of plant engineering (<20 individual proteins).

SOLUTION REQUIREMENTS

We pose no restrictions to the design of the proposed algorithm for as long as it meets the following Solution Requirements:

1. The proposed algorithm should be able to identify temperature-sensitive proteins in crops based exclusively on structural modeling (i.e., independently of any physiological and/or biochemical considerations).
2. The proposed algorithm should be flexible enough to be applied to a wide variety of plant proteomes.
3. The proposed algorithm should be able to identify the range of sensitivity to elevated temperatures.  
4. The proposed algorithm should apply to a wide range of plant proteins.

Things to avoid; at the same time, we’re not going to accept solutions that:

• Require extensive manual effort to upload proteomic information.
• Require extensive computer resources not available in a typical research lab.
• Are based on code not available in the open source.

Solutions with Technology Readiness Levels (TRLs) 1-3 are invited.

This Prize Challenge has the following features:

1. Your IP Rights are protected; the Gates Foundation must award you to obtain them.
2. The best solution has the opportunity to win the award of $25,000 for meeting all solution requirements, as solely determined by the Gates Foundation.
3. Awards will be contingent upon the theoretical evaluation of the proposal by the Gates Foundation against the Solution Requirements.
4. To receive an Award, Solvers are required to grant non-exclusive rights to their proposal. Solvers will retain all rights to any proposal not Awarded.
5. As stated in the Overview, you should seriously consider your willingness to submit a solution in compliance with the Gates Foundation Global Access Statement which can be found here: https://www.gatesfoundation.org/How-We-Work/General-Information/Global-Access-Statement.
6. The Gates Foundation may also issue “Honourable Mention” recognitions for notable submissions that are not selected for monetary awards.
7. The Gates Foundation may wish to partner with the Solver at the conclusion of the Challenge. Please indicate your interest in partnering.

YOUR SUBMISSION

Please login and register your interest, to complete the submission form.

The submitted proposals must be written in English and can include:

1. Participation type – you will first be asked to inform us how you are participating in this challenge, as a Solver (Individual) or Solver (Organization).
2. Your Acknowledgement - that there is the freedom to operate, along with your commitment to promote its availability for public benefit in a manner consistent with the stated scientific and charitable goals of the Gates Foundation, in relation to your proposed solution.
3. Solution Level - the Technology Readiness Level (TRL) of your solution.
4. Partnering - there may be an opportunity to partner at the conclusion of this Challenge. Please indicate if partnering is of interest to you.
5. Problem & Opportunity - highlight the innovation in your approach to the Problem, its point of difference, and the specific advantages/benefits this brings (up to 500 words).
6. Solution Overview - detail the features of your solution and how they address the SOLUTION REQUIREMENTS (500 words, there is space to add more in the summary field, and attach supporting data, diagrams, etc).
7. Solution Feasibility – Supporting Information and Rationale, such as references and precedents, that will help the Gates Foundation evaluate and validate the feasibility of the solution (up to 500 words).
8. Experience - Expertise, use cases and skills you or your organization have in relation to your proposed solution.  (up to 500 words).
9. Solution Risks - any risks you see with your solution and how you would plan for this (up to 500 words).
10. Timeline, capability and costs - describe what you think is required to deliver the solution, estimated time and cost (up to 500 words).
11. Online References - provide links to any publications, articles or press releases of relevance (up to 500 words).

Wazoku encourages the use by Solvers of AI approaches to help develop their submissions, though any produced solely with generative AI are not of interest.

If facts provided in your Proposed Solution change, please advise Wazoku in writing at the Message Center with any deletions, additions or changes within ten (10) days of the changes, throughout the submission and evaluation stages. 

Find out more about participation in Wazoku Crowd Challenges.

Submissions to this Challenge must be received by 11:59 PM (US Eastern Time) on February 3rd, 2025.

Late submissions will not be considered.

Your submission will be evaluated by the evaluation team first reviewing the information and content you have submitted at the submission form, with attachments used as additional context to your form submission. Submissions relying solely on attachments will receive less attention from the evaluation team.

After the Challenge submission closing date, the Gates Foundation will complete the review process and make a decision with regards to the winning solution(s) according to the timeline in the Challenge header. All Solvers who submit a proposal will be notified about the status of their submissions.