UC Berkeley Synthetic Biology Institute formed

April 25, 2011 |

In California, top researchers at the University of California, Berkeley have formed the UC Berkeley Synthetic Biology Institute to advance efforts to engineer cells and biological systems in ways that promise to transform technology in health and medicine, energy, the environment, new materials, and a host of other critical arenas.  The institute is launching collaborative effort with its first industry member, Agilent Technologies, who will help initiate SBI research with a multi-year, multi-million dollar commitment, including early access to Agilent technologies through the active participation of the company’s research scientists and engineers.

Researchers are employing synthetic biology to develop inexpensive, plentiful drugs for treating the world’s most intractable diseases, viable methods for producing transportation biofuels from plants and an array of other applications.

The deans of the two UC Berkeley colleges that have launched SBI – S. Shankar Sastry of the College of Engineering and Richard A. Mathies of the College of Chemistry – lauded Agilent’s substantial commitment to SBI and its leadership in supporting the new endeavor. They are working to attract other industry members who will follow Agilent’s lead, lending both financial support and research-area expertise, while advancing each company’s own business goals in developing synthetic biology.

The leadership of SBI includes its director Adam Arkin, professor of bioengineering and director of the Physical Biosciences Division at LBNL, and associate director Douglas Clark, professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering and executive associate dean of the College of Chemistry.

More on the story.

Category: Research

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