Global Alliance of Biofoundries major step forward in synthetic biology
CSIRO, Australia’s national science agency, has today joined a network of the world’s leading Biofoundries that will support a paradigm shift in the way synthetic biology research is undertaken.
The Global Alliance of Biofoundries (GBA) brings together 16 institutions from countries including Australia, the UK, US, Japan, Singapore, China, Denmark and Canada.
The GBA will share knowledge, infrastructure and expertise to tackle global challenges and play a central role in the ‘synthetic biology revolution’ and the transition to a new global bio-based economy.
“Biofoundry capabilities are a critical enabling technology for countries to develop capability and deliver on the significant promise of synthetic biology as a field,” says CSIRO Synthetic Biology Future Science Platform Director, Associate Professor Claudia Vickers.
CSIRO is working with The University of Queensland’s Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology and Macquarie University to build an internationally-networked Biofoundry that is openly accessible to the Australian research and development community.
“We are excited to join this global alliance that will further CSIRO’s biofoundry capability and provide researchers in Australia with the tools and technologies to exploit fundamental research and support development of new industries.”
Synthetic biology – a rapidly growing research area and new industry – brings principles from biology and engineering together to design and construct new biological entities such as enzymes, genetic circuits, and cells or redesign existing biological systems – used for important applications like new therapeutics, sustainable biomaterials, biosensors, bioenergy and food production.
Biofoundries are being established at universities and institutions around the world to provide the infrastructure and technology to both accelerate academic research and develop the new synthetic biology industry.
This includes research into for example manufacturing new vaccines and developing living therapeutics, designing and building DNA, creating biofuels, and making bioplastics more effectively and sustainably.
The Biofoundries will significantly advance research into Biomanufacturing – a safer, cleaner and greener method of manufacturing – and reduce the reliance on petrochemicals as part of a developing global bioeconomy. They will also be key to increasing reliability, reproducibility and throughput in these new bioindustries.
The GBA, which was formerly launched today [May 9] at a meeting of partners at Kobe University in Japan, was established to coordinate activities between Biofoundries worldwide.
Global Alliance of Biofoundries:
Agile BioFoundry (pending), led by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, US
Australian Genome Foundry, Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia
Australian Foundry for Advanced Biomanufacturing (AusFAB) led by the University of Queensland and CSIRO, Brisbane, Australia
BioFoundry, Center of Synthetic Biology, Collaborative Innovation, Center of Chemical Science and Engineering, Tianjin University, China
Center for Applied Synthetic Biology, Concordia University, Canada
DAMP Lab, Boston University, US
Earlham DNA Foundry, Norwich, UK
Edinburgh Genome Foundry (EGF), UK Centre for Mammalian Synthetic Biology, University of Edinburgh, UK
GeneMill, University of Liverpool, UK
University of Illinois, US
Kobe University, Japan
London DNA Foundry, SynbiCITE, Imperial College London, UK
Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Biosustainability, Technical University of Denmark, Kongens Lyngby, Denmark
Shenzhen Core Facility for Synthetic Biology, Shenzhen Institute of Synthetic Biology, Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, China
SYNBIOCHEM, Manchester Synthetic Biology Research Centre for Fine and Speciality Chemicals, University of Manchester, UK
Synthetic Biology Foundry, Synthetic Biology for Clinical and Technological Innovation (SynCTI), National University of Singapore, Singapore