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That last line about Twist delivering 400 base pairs has to be wrong, right? Do they mean 400 million?
> The startup announced in the spring of 2015 it would be buying 100 million base pairs of DNA to help it move into new production areas but has since upped that amount to the 600 million base pairs and will be partnering with Twist Bioscience and Gen9 to supply the synthetic DNA. Twist has pledged to deliver at least 400 of those base pairs of DNA by the end of 2017. That last line about Twist delivering 400 base pa…
> The startup announced in the spring of 2015 it would be buying 100 million base pairs of DNA to help it move into new production areas but has since upped that amount to the 600 million base pairs and will be partnering with Twist Bioscience and Gen9 to supply the synthetic DNA. Twist has pledged to deliver at least 400 of those base pairs of DNA by the end of 2017. That last line about Twist delivering 400 base pa…
Yes should be 400 million. 100 million from our last order plus 300 million in this new order.
How do you compare Gen9 and Twist? Do you use each for a specific type of synthesis?
I'm Jason Kelly, one of the Ginkgo co-founders -- happy to answer questions!
Earlier quoted context omitted.
What's the current cost per base pair? Is a significant portion of the funding really going into synthesis? Do you foresee synthesis costs falling quickly? It seems like its a major factor holding back commercial applications of synthetic biology. Congrats on the funding and best of luck as you continue to scale!
This is Patrick, I lead our Design team here. Rather than commercial applications being held back by synthesis prices, it's the large scale demand from foundries ours that helps synthesis companies scale up their processes. If you assume that synthetic biology is going to be done by-hand for the foreseeable future, demand doesn't scale as quickly and prices stay high.
I'm Jason Kelly, one of the Ginkgo co-founders -- happy to answer questions!
I applied with my partner with a similar goal a couple of years ago, and was rejected. The criteria for biotech applications was very vague then, and we tried to keep our pitch as non technical as possible which I think worked against us.
Also, do you have an in house gene design method or do you rely on the supplier to optimize? As I see it, the two major obstacles are reaching commercially viable expression yields, and identifying market demand.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is Patrick, I lead our Design team here. Rather than commercial applications being held back by synthesis prices, it's the large scale demand from foundries ours that helps synthesis companies scale up their processes. If you assume that synthetic biology is going to be done by-hand for the foreseeable future, demand doesn't scale as quickly and prices stay high.
in other words, the robots are coming to steal our jobs?
I'm Jason Kelly, one of the Ginkgo co-founders -- happy to answer questions!
Hello Jason Kelly and Patrick! I've been interested in synthetic biology for awhile now and am currently in the process of organizing a new iGEM team for my university. Did either of you compete in iGEM, and if so, how did it shape your perception of synthetic biology? Also, what advice would you give to a biochem student interested in pursuing SB as a career?
In terms of SB as a career, the field is moving so fast it's better to focus on problem solving than techniques. Cloning will be obsolete soon; how would you design biological systems when you can synthesize any DNA sequence you want?
I'm Jason Kelly, one of the Ginkgo co-founders -- happy to answer questions!
I'm a machine learning and have done work with Bayesian methods for modeling dynamic systems. I've been considering jumping into a synthetic biology company in industry. I've been searching for statistics and machine learning problems that need solving in synthetic biology. I suspect that there are two problems where a statistician or machine learning expert could contribute. The first is building data-driven models…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hello Jason Kelly and Patrick! I've been interested in synthetic biology for awhile now and am currently in the process of organizing a new iGEM team for my university. Did either of you compete in iGEM, and if so, how did it shape your perception of synthetic biology? Also, what advice would you give to a biochem student interested in pursuing SB as a career?
I believe Jason was on the first iGEM team! A lot of us at Ginkgo have been judges for iGEM, and many of our DNA Padawans are former iGEMers. iGEM is a great forum for synthetic biology because it encourages students to develop their research in creative and socially responsible ways. In terms of SB as a career, the field is moving so fast it's better to focus on problem solving than techniques. Cloning will be obsol…
I'm considering applying for the DNA Padawan internship after I graduate. Gingko Bioworks seems like a great place to work, and I bet I would learn techniques that are closer to the cutting edge than what I would learn in grad school.
I haven't tried my hand at SB yet (though I will soon!) but I suppose if I could synthesize any DNA sequence I wanted quickly and cheaply I would rely more heavily on computational intelligence approaches to come up with many solutions. Then I suppose you could print the DNA and test those solutions quickly, feed the data back to the algorithm and it would get better at designing future systems. (Computer science isn't my background, so I may have used some of those terms improperly).
Thanks for the reply randomscientist, you've made one (hopefully) future iGEMer really happy.