DARPA, Venter launch assembly line for genetic engineering
May 23, 2012
"Living Foundries" program to "transform biology into an engineering practice" (credit: VA)
DARPA has launched a program called called “Living Foundries,”designed to apply the conventions of manufacturing to living cells, Wired Danger Room reports.
DARPA has awarded seven research grants worth $15.5 million to six different companies and institutions, including the University of Texas at Austin, Cal Tech, and the J. Craig Venter Institute.
“Living Foundries” aspires to streamline genetic engineering for “on-demand production” of whatever bio-product suits the military’s immediate needs, starting with a library of “modular genetic parts.”
The agency wants researchers to come up with a set of “parts, regulators, devices and circuits” that can reliably yield various genetic systems. After that, they’ll also need “test platforms” to quickly evaluate new bio-materials to “compress the biological design-build-test cycle by at least 10X in both time and cost,” while also “increasing the complexity of systems that can be designed and executed.”
Comments (9)
by melajara
Instead of this ridiculous Facebook IPO, I would have loved to see Craig Venter’s company IPO. That is REAL value!
by gaoptimize
If I could, I would have “like”d your comment.
by Joe
SOYLENT GREEN IS PEOPLE!!!
by Razor
Just checked down the Award list Harvard, MIT and CalTech – but no Stanford (where Endy is based) – so what happens to the research and the gene building blocks that are discovered – will they be shared with the “open source” Bio-Bricks? I don’t think this is good news for progress.
by Razor
This is interesting timing – as Drew Endy who set up Bio-bricks years ago – had a press release today of his own with news of his DNA computing…I cant see any mention of him involved with this project. His project is “open source” – now I wonder if the DARPA project will be open source too? Hmmm…..
by gaoptimize
I’d vote “No” on the open source release of this information until very good anti-virals and anti-biotics come out of this research.
by Conrad Green
nice. Singularity is already here…there just buttering us up.
by Editor
… to serve man? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/To_Serve_Man_(The_Twilight_Zone)
by gaoptimize
Agree that the Singularity appears to be ahead of schedule currently. I wonder if Ray Kurzweil has more detailed roadmaps be field/discipline he is tracking developments against to fine-tune his projections.