Two years ago, Ginkgo Bioworks was genetically programming microbes to make rose oil from yeast. Today the company is valued at a billion dollars, working with Bayer to train plants to fertilize themselves and, as of Wednesday, helping the US government fight biological threats.
The Center for Disease Control (CDC) defines biological threat as "an infectious disease with the potential to spread and cause an emergency." While such threats can occur naturally, as in the case of a flu caused by a virus (think H1N1), others might be intentional acts of harm like the Anthrax scare of 2001.
The Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA) is committed to ramping up its biosecurity measures and launched new programs to develop tools that aim to prevent the misuse of synthetic biology. Boston-based Ginkgo Bioworks will join other biotech startups like Twist Bioscience and One Codex to design software tools to prevent the intentional or accidental production of biological threats. How exactly? The company is developing algorithms that will screen DNA sequences and determine if they could be pathogenic or toxic to humans or animals. These algorithms can also predict the function of unknown sequences, and assign a threat level based on the potential for harm.
Under the program, Ginkgo is also working with aerospace and defense giant Northrop Grumman to detect potential bio error as well as bioterror incidents by analyzing DNA sequencing of agents.
"The revolution in synthetic biology and deep learning will dramatically improve our ability to prevent, detect, and rapidly counteract biothreats," said Andrew Weber, former Assistant Secretary of Defense for Nuclear, Chemical and Biological Defense Programs and an advisor to Ginkgo.
Synthetic biology which aims at engineering biology in a lab, is a field that has grown rather quickly with no signs of stopping. The global market for it which includes products, applications and tools is expected to touch $38 billion by 2020. Some Boston startups in this industry include Asimov, Generation Bio, Twist Bioscience and Arbor Biotechnologies.
