The Digital-to-Biological Converter (DBC), or “life printer”, just came out in Nature Biotech.
Opening, by Dan Gibson, Craig Venter, and the Synthetic Genomics team: “DNA templates, RNA molecules, proteins and viral particles were produced in an automated fashion from digitally transmitted DNA sequences without human intervention.”
Highlights: “First, we synthesized a 1.5-kb DNA fragment encoding GFP.”
“We next synthesized Orencia (abatacept), Lucentis (ranibizumab) and Herceptin (trastuzumab) antibody polypeptides”
“We next applied the DBC to produce an RNA vaccine and a bacteriophage, both of which have potential as therapeutics for infectious diseases.”
“We also produced functional influenza viral particles (H1N1)”
“Finally, we fully automated production of the ΦX174 bacteriophage, which has a 5,386-bp genome, on the DBC. The genome sequence was manually designed in silico”
“with the incorporation of large-scale synthesis technologies, one can envision the DBC being used in industrial settings to enable high- volume production of biologics such as proteins and RNA vaccines.”
Summary release: http://www.syntheticgenomics.com/digital-to-biological-converter-for-on-demand-production-of-biologics-developed-by-synthetic-genomics-inc/
Article: https://www.nature.com/nbt/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nbt.3859.html
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