Living Foundries
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1
Living Foundries
Polymers
Catalysts
DNA
instruction set
Heterogeneous,
functional materials
Cellulose
Natural gas
Molecules
Sugar
Fuels
Pharma
CO2
Coal
Chemicals
“cell-like”
factory
Multi-cellular
constructs
Disruptive capabilities in materials,
therapeutics, sensors and
manufacturing paradigms
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Self-repairing
systems
Sentinel
Organisms
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Engineering Biology: Prohibitive Cost, Time, Complexity
minimal bacterium
10
Effort (total $ * yrs to develop) [$*yr]
11
1.00E+11
10
10
1.00E+10
yeast
DARPA
annual budget
DuPont
1,3 propanediol
2002
109
1.00E+09
Amyris
Artemisinin
2009
108
1.00E+08
107
1.00E+07
SOA
106
1.00E+06
10
1.00E+055
Living Foundries
10
1.00E+044
103
1.00E+03
metabolic engineering
complex genetic circuits
11
10
10
genome rewrite
100
1,000
10,000
100
1,000
10,000
Complexity (# genes inserted/modified)
100,000
100,000
Problem: Engineering biology is prohibitively time and money intensive, blocking
disruptive capabilities across
materials,
sensors,
medicine and manufacturing. 3
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for Public Release,
Distribution Unlimited
“There was a gap between the sorts of systems we could visualize
and what we could actually get into hardware in a timely way.”
Lynn Conway on VLSI
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4
Comparison: integrated circuit design and fab
Central metabolism
Intel 4004
Year - 1971
Pyruvate
+ G3P
OH
dxr
ispD
ispE
Synthase
ispF
ispG
ispH
idi
ispA
ADS
FPP
O
Amorphadiene
CPR
p450
P
H
O-
Artemisinic
Acid
H
OPP
O-
OPP
H3 C
Hydroxylase Unit
O
O
OHC
dxs
DXP Pathway
CO2H
OPP
HO
H
H
O
Artemisinic acid production in yeast
dual-feedback
oscillator
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Comparison: integrated circuit design and fab
Conway and Mead Design Principles
Technical
• Simplification and Standardization
• Raise abstraction level of design
• Design Rules
Intel 4004
Year - 1971
• Design Tools
Structural
• Decoupling of Design and Fab
• Access to rapid prototyping services
(common infrastructure)
• Enable open collaboration
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Building a new technology base to enable transformative
applications
Living Foundries: ATCG
New tools to enable rapid
engineering of biology
Living Foundries: 1000 Molecules
Foundries
Enable scale and rapid
prototyping of genetic designs
never before accessible
Demo New Capability
1000 Molecules
1000 new chemical building
blocks for new materials
100x faster DBT cycle for
engineering biology
Enable Impossible Projects
...
IMPACT:
Open up new avenues for innovation
Enable access/new entrants
Engage and Seed industrial/academic partnerships
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Fundamental shift in
chemical/materials industry
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BTO
Biology as Technology
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Traditional DoD View of Biology
Biology = Medicine for the Warfighter
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Traditional DoD View of Biology
Technology
National
Security
Biology = Medicine for the Warfighter
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www.darpa.mil
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