Synthetic Genomics is transforming our understanding of genomes and revolutionising how they are used

Thanks to the rapid development of sequencing technologies since the Human Genome Project began, we can now sequence anything at any time with minimal investment. This process is often referred to as 'reading DNA'. The resulting data provides information ranging from individual organisms to whole ecosystems. Science without this information and technology is no longer feasible. However, the majority of this data is not utilised. Methodological advances in DNA synthesis and assembly, based on synthetic biology approaches, have steadily increased our ability to construct long sequences of DNA. This could be referred to as 'writing DNA'. However, writing DNA lags behind reading DNA. Nevertheless, the first studies to design, build and test whole synthetic chromosomes and entire genomes demonstrate that this is feasible. So far, most of the work has focused on microorganisms due to their simplicity, the large portfolio of established genetic tools available for them, and their cheap cultivation and rapid generation times. Importantly, Synthetic Genomics has now reached a similar stage to when shotgun sequencing was first developed, and it is about to take off!

Our group works with a variety of microorganisms and has contributed to the Synthetic Yeast Genome Project (Sc2.0). This presentation will demonstrate how modular laboratory automation can facilitate synthetic genomics projects, and how a created bacterial strain may accelerate experimental workflows in future. The talk will also share insights from the synthetic yeast genome project and demonstrate its potential applications in synthetic biology and biotechnology.

References

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37944512/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38653205/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38698198/