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The SynbiCITE Blog

The latest insights & analyses from the SynbiCITE team

51 blog articles

Engineering a solution to high throughput COVID-19 virus testing in just nine days

SynbiCITE’s London BioFoundry acts on the WHO recommendation of ‘Test, Test, Test’ to show how throughput can be significantly increasedRe-thinking th...

28 apr
COVID-19 - Components to the solution

Professor Richard Kitney discusses vaccines, effective testing for antigens and antibodies, effective diagnosis of the various stages of the disease a...

20 apr
Moving to the World of Digital Biology

Professor Richard Kitney shares his thoughts on engineering biology and its role in today's world. It seems as if at moment coronavirus for COVID-19 i...

30 mar
A New Manufacturing Approach to Vaccine Production

Professor Richard Kitney discusses vaccine production using synthetic biology. So, the major topic of the moment is coronavirus, to which, as we know,...

16 mar
The Power of the DARPA Approach

Professor Richard Kitney shares his thoughts on funding models following the budget announcementIn my blog last week, I was talking about the developm...

16 mar
Fostering a Synthetic Biology standards agenda through the Centre for Engineering Biology, Metrology and Standards

Synthetic biology is seen as having huge potential to cut across different concepts, capabilities and technologies and transform processes within indu...

10 mar
Synthetic Biology at Scale

Professor Richard Kitney, Co-founder, SynbiTECH, discusses the industrial scaling problem. I recently attended the annual Fellows Day at The Royal Aca...

26 feb
The UK SynBio Industry - what does the future hold?

Professor Richard Kitney, Co-founder, SynbiTECH, discusses the UK synbio industry post-Brexit. It’s been an exciting couple of weeks. First, James Fie...

21 feb
SynbiTECH 2020: SynBio and Sustainability

Professor Richard Kitney, Co-founder, SynbiTECH, provides an overview of this year's SynbiTECH. The overarching theme of SynbiTECH 2020 is sustainabil...

29 jan
SynbiTECH conference gets up close and personal with the synbio companies powering the uk bioeconomy

SynbiTECH 2019 is the only international conference focused on synthetic biology taking place in the UK in 2019, designed for senior business leaders from start-ups to multinationals, investors and policy makers.

4 jun
2018 Meeting on UK Synthetic Genomics

On the 17th September 2018, a one-day meeting entitled "Synthesising a Human Genome: What could go right? " was held at the Wellcome Trust in London...

8 feb
Professor Paul Freemont speaks on BBC Inside Science

The speed and ease of precise infection diagnosis could be transformed by synthetic biologists at Imperial College, London. Paul Freemont tells Adam a...

27 oct
Jennifer Doudna talks to Jim al-Khalili on CRISPR/cas9

Jennifer Doudna, developer of the gene editing system called CRISPR/cas9, talks to Jim al-Khalili.

25 oct
Prominent players in the UK’s thriving synbio sector

SynbiCITE looks at some of the companies leading the way in UK synthetic biology, creating innovative new technologies and driving the growth of the UK bioeconomy.

10 oct
Looking ahead: Conference season has arrived

As the summer draws to a close, the life science sector once again gears up for conference season. Here we take a look at some events we are particularly excited about:

8 sep
Bio-start 2.0

On 11th of July 2017, 11 months to the day from the launch of the Bio-start competition, CustoMem was announced as the overall winner, receiving £100k. Bio-start was met with widespread enthusiasm and support, and SynbiCITE fully intend to take the competition into its second year in 2018, with new sponsors, mentors and an eager new cohort of start-ups.

25 jul
Bio-start Awards 2017

Bio-start awards over £100K in zero-equity prizes to 6 high-impact start-ups Bio-start celebrates UK innovative start-ups with commercial ideas that ...

17 jul
Bio-start Awards 2017: Finalists Announced

​On Tuesday 11th July 2017, the finals and awards for the first annual Bio-start competition will take place. Read about the finalists here.

6 jul
Q&A with Bio-Start mentor Debra Conway

Q&A with Bio-Start mentor Debra Conway Managing Director, CyBio Northern Europe.Bio-Start: What in your background makes you a good mentor to the ...

5 jul
Q&A with Tara Hill, Twist Bioscience

A Q&A with Tara Hill of Twist Bioscience about how she started out in science and business

30 jun
Q&A with Bio-Start mentor James Hallinan

A Q&A with James Hallinan about his experience as a mentor with the Bio-Start engineering biology competition

28 jun
Synthetic biology – does industry get it?

As part of the conference series ‘Breakthrough science and technologies: transforming our future’, the Royal Society hosted a conference posing the question ‘Synthetic biology – does industry get it?’. Read the conference report here.

19 jun
Steve Bates brings synthetic biology to Buckingham Palace

Innovation meets tradition as Steve Bates, CEO of BIA, becomes the first person to wear spider silk while being honoured at Buckingham Palace.

14 jun
Bio-start Awards 2017

Tickets for the Bio-start Awards 2017 are on offer now, and spaces are limited. To register your place for free, visit the Bio-start Awards 2017 sign up on Eventbrite.

12 jun
Update: Investing for the long haul

The Rainbow Seed Fund – one of the founders of the Bio-start award – is seeking early-stage companies for high growth, high-risk investment. The RSF combines the best of the public and private sectors to capitalise companies spun out from the UK’s research base in synthetic biology.

5 jun
Engineering Biology: the new IET open access journal

​The Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) has launched a new journal, entitled Engineering Biology, to reflect the fact that synthetic biology/engineering biology is, fundamentally, now widely recognised as a field of engineering.

22 may
Shooting for the moon: SynbiCITE share industrial knowledge at GP-write

On May 9th and 10th, 2017 around 250 scientists, industry leaders, policy makers and ethicists gathered at the New York Genome Center for the second meeting of GP-write. GP-write is an open, international collaboration that aims to reduce by 1,000-fold within 10 years the costs of engineering and testing large genomes in cell lines. Dr David McClymont, Head of Automation, The London DNA Foundry, shares his thoughts. 

22 may
Who owns CRISPR?

Who owns CRISPR: this blog looks at the long and contentious battle over the intellectual property rights to this breakthrough technology.

15 may
Japanese government delegation seeks SynbiCITE’s advice on start-ups creation and synthetic biology business opportunities

A recent UK visit by a high-level Japanese delegation of government officials and industrialists recognises the tremendous progress the UK has made, building on its established lead in Europe, towards becoming a major global biotech cluster.

15 may
Innovations in cell-free synthetic biology are transforming biotechnology

Richard Kelwick and Professor Paul Freemont comment on The Economist's article on cell-free synthetic biology “Cell-free biotech will make for better products”.

5 may
SynBioBeta London 2017

2017 saw another successful year for SynBioBeta London, with synthetic biology researchers, investors and enthusiasts alike flocking to London for lively talks and great networking. Read SynbiCITE's insights on the event here.

12 apr
Engineering Biology for a Better World

Two recent events saw SynbiCITE working in partnership with OBN to connect with new audiences; a Senior Executive Breakfast at the Royal Academy of Engineering in London in late February, and the BioTuesday on ‘Engineering Biology for a Better World’ at the Mathematical Institute in Oxford in early March. Both drew on the idea of engineering biology as a technology with the power to ‘heal us, feed us and fuel us’.

14 mar
A look forward to SynBioBeta London 2017

The annual SynBioBeta London Conference, now in its 5th year, will return to London from the 4th-6th April 2017. With this exciting event less than a ...

13 mar
Investing in a better future: a look forward to the SynbiCITE Investor Breakfast at the House of Lords

Engineering biology is a catalyst for growing the global bioeconomy, and represents a clear money making opportunity. It will shape our future and is ...

13 mar
Reviewing the IET-SynbiCITE Engineering Biology Conference 2016

December 2016 saw the 1st International Conference on Engineering Biology take place in London. Here we look back over some conference highlights and award winners.

17 jan
Bio-start: the story so far and looking forward to the final

​As 2017 kicks off, we take a look back at the last 4 months of the Bio-start competition, and at what is to come as it progresses this year.

12 jan
DIY Labware: the advanced cupholder

Sometimes your liquid handling robot needs to be able to use tubes but they have to be placed in exactly the correct position every time. 3D printing ...

5 jan
Lean LaunchPad for Synthetic Biology Review

As this Autumn’s Lean Launchpad for Synthetic Biology drew to a close, the teams described the lessons learned from the programme. William Pelton who ...

8 dec
International Genetically Engineered Competition (iGEM) 2016

Attributed to Eleanor Chambers iGEM volunteer The 2016 Giant Jamboree took place at the Hynes Convention Center in downtown Boston last week (Oct 27-...

4 nov
Synthetic Biology and Biomedicine

Engineering microenvironmental sensitive devices for targeted therapies With rapidly progressing rational design of synthetic devices, synthetic biol...

3 oct
Synthetic Biology Publications: Top Ten

Synthetic biology first entered the scientific lexicon in 1970s in the wake of the then recent developments in recombinant DNA technology when Waclaw ...

20 sep
Some Thoughts on the Engineering of Biology

Prof Richard Kitney, Co-Director SynbiCITEIt is almost a decade and a half since Tom Knight introduced the concept of BioBricks, or standard biologica...

18 aug
Entrepreneur Q&A: Ted Fjallman

Q: What is your background?A: Scientist – I liked physics and genetics, but I was already interested in business and communication (and history) at a ...

16 aug
Lean LaunchPad for Synthetic Biology Alumni: Where are they now? Part 2

Gabriella Santosa and Florence Gschwend were awarded the prestigious 2016 Althea PrizeIn the latest of our occasional series, we look at past particip...

25 jul
SynbiCITE Fact-Finding Mission to China

SynbiCITE reports on its recent fact-finding mission to China and the state of Sino-synbio.

25 jul
CRISPR-Cas9 genome editing partners with CAR-T cell therapy

The CRISPR-Cas9 system has rapidly become an indispensable tool in research labs around the world. Now it is finding an application as a therapeutic.

19 jul
The Second Human Genome Project: HGP-Write

Professor Paul Freemont discuses the potential sequel to the Human Genome Project: HGP-Write.

29 jun
IET/SynbiCITE Joint Workshop and Conference on Engineering Biology

SynbiCITE and the IET are planning a joint Engineering Biology workshop and conference for December 2016.

7 jun
We Use ‘Version Control’ for Synthetic Biology at The Foundry. Here’s Why You Should Too

Drawing inspiration from programming.

2 jun
Lean LaunchPad for Synthetic Biology Alumni: Where are they now? Part 1

The entrepreneurial programme Lean Launchpad for Synthetic Biology returns to London this autumn. Where are last year's budding entrepreneurs now?

31 may
Lean LaunchPad for Synthetic Biology: Autumn 2016

The entrepreneurial programme Lean LaunchPad for Synthetic Biology returns to London this autumn.

26 may