Gen9 Joins Synthetic Genome Project to Build Yeast 2.0

Gen9, Inc., a pioneer in the development of scalable technologies for synthesizing genes, today announced that it has been selected to take part in the Synthetic Yeast Project Sc2.0, organized and hosted by Johns Hopkins University (JHU) School of Medicine. Gen9 will use its proprietary next-generation gene synthesis technology to contribute to the project.

The Synthetic Yeast Project aims to use yeast, S. cerevisiae, as the basis for a new, sleekly engineered synthetic life form, Sc2.0, that can be used to answer a wide variety of profound questions about fundamental properties of chromosomes, genome organization, gene content, the function of RNA splicing, and questions relating to genome structure and evolution. Members of the project will design, build, and assemble synthetic yeast chromosomes.

As a participant in the project, Gen9 will synthesize DNA corresponding to chromosome 9 of the yeast genome, a region encompassing about 90Kb. JHU Professor Jef Boeke, founder of the Synthetic Yeast Project, will advise Gen9 on the work.

"We are pleased to be taking part in this visionary project with the goal of designing a synthetic organism that may ultimately be important in bioremediation, ethanol production, and other innovative uses," said Kevin Munnelly, CEO of Gen9. "This is an excellent example of how our novel BioFab® platform and capability to produce long stretches of high-quality, synthetic DNA can be applied in making a valuable contribution to the yeast project and to synthetic biology as a whole."

Gen9 is a privately held gene synthesis and synthetic biology company with a rapidly growing portfolio of products. Currently, Gen9 is manufacturing and shipping double-stranded GeneBits® DNA constructs (up to 1000 base pairs in length), and GeneBytes® DNA constructs (from 1000 base pairs to 3000 base pairs). Also, by the end of 2013, Gen9 will begin selling synthesized DNA constructs as long as 10Kb. All of Gen9's products are sequence verified and sent as clonal, either in a vector or as linear DNA.