BIOFAB to Create DNA Parts for Bioengineering

BIOFAB: International Open Facility Advancing Biotechnology announced on Jan. 18 that it has begun efforts to standardize the control elements used in the creation of microbes. The organization will provide synthetic biologists with a toolbox for engineering new drugs and chemicals.

BIOFAB is supported by a two-year grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF), Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), and the BioBricks Foundation, a standardized registry for existing biological parts. Bioengineers from the University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley) and Stanford University will manage the project.

Co-Director of BIOFAB, Drew Endy. Source: NIGMS.

“Synthetic biology has the potential to make the engineering of biology much easier and more affordable,” Drew Endy, founding director of BIOFAB, assistant professor of bioengineering at Stanford, and president of the BioBricks Foundation, said in a press release. “Via the BIOFAB, we will help ensure that the public’s investments and interests in the next generation of biotechnology return the greatest benefits.”

Currently, researchers spend a significant amount of time and money to create a microbe since each part, including promoters and transcription factors, must be individually identified, characterized, and modified. A recent project by Jay Keasling, UC Berkeley professor of chemical engineering and bioengineering-which created microbes that produce the anti-malaria drug artemisinin-took 10 years and $25 million to complete. The researchers at BIOFAB intend to shorten development timeframes and reduce costs by producing thousands of standardized DNA parts that will be available to researchers for free.

Chair of the BIOFAB executive committee, Jay Keasling. Source: Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

“The professionally staffed BIOFAB production facility will provide an essential resource that will allow many academic researchers and others to rapidly prototype, test, and translate their foundational discoveries and ideas into practice,” Keasling, who is also acting deputy director of LBNL and chair of the BIOFAB executive committee, said in a press release. “By enabling everyone to better work together, the BIOFAB will make the engineering of biology easier and more predictable.”

Though BIOFAB is an acronym, the name’s significance comes from the idea of fabrication service laboratories, or fablabs, established in the semiconductor industry to facilitate the creation and manufacture of custom chips. Endy co-directs BIOFAB with Adam Arkin, UC Berkeley professor of bioengineering and head of synthetic biology for LBNL’s physical biosciences division. Endy and Arkin proposed the idea of a fablab for biological parts 10 years ago.

“Besides Tom Knight [of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology], very few people were talking about standard biological parts 10 years ago,” said Endy. “We now need to move beyond Lego metaphors and genetic toys to professional technologies.”

While standard biological parts are not yet readily available, they are important in current research. Such parts are used by college students as part of the annual International Genetically Engineered Machine (iGEM) competition and are used daily in synthetic biology labs. Endy quantified the problem by stating that of the estimated 3500 critical control elements in Escherichia coli; fewer than 100 have been seriously studied. Of the 500-plus promoters listed in the current registry, fewer than 50 have been measured.

Co-Director of BIOFAB, Adam Arkin. Source: Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

“What exists today is not a professional parts catalog,” said Arkin. “But the parts we have, while not perfect, are better than nothing, and they are helping researchers all over the world.”

The BIOFAB will operate in partnership with the UC Berkeley–led Synthetic Biology Engineering Research Center (SynBerc) which is also supported by the NSF. BIOFAB intends to hire 29 full-time staff in the near future to standardize the genetic control elements in E. coli. The research will aid parts collection for other microbes and be used to assemble synthetic biological systems.

“Even though we will be building parts and making systems, we are still in the foundational research stage,” said Arkin. “But in starting BIOFAB, we will accumulate the specialized know-how and the community of researchers necessary to become a resource for production and training in synthetic biology.”

Further Information: http://www.biofab.org/