National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded Lucendi a Phase II SBIR program to develop: "AI-based automated, portable, and high-throughput platform for early identification and characterization of potentially harmful microorganisms in aquaculture." Over 82 million tons of fish was produced by aquaculture in 2018 alone and is projected to increase to 109 million tons by 2030. At the same time, aquaculture is a decade behind in terms of technology innovation. One of the most significant challenges is to mitigate the effects of diseases that are leading to large production losses. With support from NSF, Lucendi is developing a platform that will be able to screen water samples, identify and characterize potentially dangerous microorganisms, such as harmful algae and sea lice. This information will empower aquaculture experts to optimize mitigation processes and significantly reduce production losses.

Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has awarded Lucendi a Phase II SBIR program to develop: "Cost-effective, portable and automated platform for microplastics characterization." Microplastics pollution is rapidly becoming an acute global problem. It is estimated that our oceans are polluted with over 51 trillion microplastic particles (MP), with economic damages to marine ecosystems estimated at $13 Billion per year. With support from EPA, Lucendi is developing a platform for cost-effective and rapid identification and characterization of MP in water, empowering decision makers, citizen scientists and regulators. 

EPA press release can be accessed here. 

Department of Energy has awarded Lucendi a Phase II SBIR program to develop: "AlgaSens: An AI-enabled Platform for Cost-effective Automated Characterization of Algae and Other Micro-objects for Optimizing Research and Cultivation in Bioproducts & Biofuels." Algae are an abundant and renewable source of valuable protein, nutrients, chemicals, oil and other compounds. At the same time, algae yields can be drastically decreased or even crash overnight due to infestation of pests, improper environmental conditions or malnutrition. Therefore, process monitoring and algae characterization are critical to the success and optimization of production. AlgaSens will empower algae producers by providing data analytics from automated monitoring of the cultivated algae and identification of pests. AlgaSens is based on Lucendi's Aqusens imaging flow cytometry platform and will build on the successful results of a Phase I program that was completed in 2020. 

National Institute of Health (Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health & Human Development) has awarded Lucendi, Inc. with a FastTrack SBIR program to design, develop and evaluate Lucendi Semen Performance Analytics (SPA) platform under a program titled, "Low-cost, portable and automated semen analysis using computational microscopy for home-based testing of male wellness and fertility." This FastTrack program will begin with Phase I, followed by Phase II upon evaluation by NIH and approval of Phase I results.