The original assembly standard developed by MIT researcher Tom Knight laid the groundwork for the notion of mix-and-match biological parts. But technical protocols for assembling DNA are far from the only element of synthetic biology that needs to be standardized for the idea of parts sharing to take off. Once you make a part, you need to specify its characteristics — how strongly it expresses a particular gene, for example — for others to use it.
So far, such characterization is not a strong suit of the parts in the BioBricks Foundation's Registry of Standard Biological Parts. "If you look through the Registry, you'll find there are lots of parts available," says Jason Kelly, who finished his PhD in Drew Endy's lab at MIT last year and cofounded Ginkgo Bioworks, a synthetic biology services provider. "A smaller fraction, marked with a 'W', are listed as working. And then there's an ...
