By Ross Geller
Since the last decade, the DNA sequencing industry has grown significantly. That is because of the requirement to express and target specific proteins in order to obtain a desirable phenotype and to perform a particular action. The rise and research of DNA sequencing and custom peptide synthesis have gained substantial numbers ever since.
Speeding the DNA Delivery Time
From the ones studying the diseases’ diagnosis and development to the ones who plan on developing some of the novel biological therapeutics, the researches of life sciences have come together to acquire DNA. This is the DNA that acts as an instructional code that is central to nearly every life science. Moreover, many Ph.D. students from Cambridge University, along with the founders of Nuclera, have recognized the pain point. This point can be categorized as a process of DNA receiving by researches working in benchtops.
To overcome such a challenging situation, Nuclera is in the process of commercializing a benchtop printer of DNA that would work in the direction of reducing or cut down the delivery duration to one day. The co-founder of Nuclera quoted that the entire team has been trying to empower all the scientists to receive DNA at their respective labs. He further adds that the series of steps will be performed at a specific time, which is a lot similar to how programmers working on their computers manage to turn around the code.
One of the gold standards followed to make DNA in labs in today’s date is Phosphoramidite Organic Synthesis. But, this process is a bit complicated to carry out. Any standard laboratory that accommodates such a procedure has an abundant amount of ambient moisture to facilitate the phosphoramidite chemistry. Furthermore, all the monoamides need to be placed in toxic solvents that further require sealing and purging with specialized gases and argon.
As a consequence, this organic synthesis process cannot be deployed or miniaturized on the customer benchtops. And, moreover, is one of the reasons why several DNA synthesis abodes are massive entities that follow the series of accepting orders from all the corners of the globe.
K6-3’s Significance
Every protein engineering company, on the other hand, samples around tens and thousands of proteins. These are done through the medium of laboratory automation. A notable fact here is that the use of K6-3 colony picker to assemble and grow colonies into the format of the 96-well is nothing short of an essential step. Bacterial plasmids have proteins that can later undergo testing procedures to keep a check on whether or not they accommodate the objectified phenotypes and traits. The colony picker K6-3, however, allows a single run to perform in half an hour to one hour as compared to the runs conducted by an individual scientist. The use of K6-3 thereby helps in increasing the entire throughput.
Synthetic Biology’s Future
In the last three decades, the sectors of technology have experienced exponential growth and progress. And, the same revolution has continued to grow the field of life sciences. As a result, this technology growth has allowed scientists to perform the cycle of design-build-testing efficiently and effectively.
Such an advancement makes the scientists process DNA sequencing quickly and in an accessible way. The co-founder also says that those who can provide the fastest products or results and multi-application experience are the synthetic biology’s future. The integrated all-in-one systems also have a considerable amount of potential that can engineer desired proteins and help in delivering DNA. With such systems on every scientist’s fingertips, the synthetic biology sector will be no less than a trendy revolution.