| Outcome/accomplishment:
The NSF-funded Synthetic Biology Engineering Research Center (SynBERC),
based at the University of California-Berkeley, has launched the world’s
first biotechnology design and build facility, known as the BioFab.
The facility will produce tens of thousands of high-quality standard biological
parts each year that will be available for free to academic and commercial
users.
Impact/benefits:
BioFab will lower the cost and development time of synthetic biology projects
for academic and industry biotech laboratories. BioFab’s effort to
characterize thousands of control elements critical to the engineering
of microbes will enable researchers to mix and match parts in synthetic
organisms to produce new drugs, fuels, or chemicals.
Explanation/ background:
Unlike more mature fields, biotechnology lacks the equivalent of even the
simplest machine shop to be used in service of specific applications.
DNA design and construction is still developing and has not yet been organized
and integrated in support of agile and rapid systems prototyping.
The BioFab facility is developing
an open membership architecture so that additional universities, companies,
and non-profits can readily partner and sponsor the BioFab via grants,
direct gifts, and in-kind donations. Life Technologies, Inc. is the
first founding industrial partner and sponsor, with other companies expected
to quickly follow. The BioBricks Foundation, a not-for-profit, is
lending its expertise in biotechnology law and standards. SynBERC
is also working with colleagues in Europe to secure funding to launch a
sister facility in the U.K.
The goals of launching BioFab
are to develop sets of open source genetic components sufficient to engineer
most biotechnologically important microbes, and to develop a rapid prototyping
service sufficient to quickly assemble and characterize smalls systems
from such parts on demand using emerging tools and technologies in genetic
engineering, automation, measurement, computation, and information science. |
