Building Biofoundry India: challenges and path forward

Abstract

Biofoundry is a place where biomanufacturing meets automation. The highly modular structure of a biofoundry helps accelerate the design-build-test-learn (DBTL) workflow to deliver products fast and in a streamlined fashion. In this perspective, we describe our efforts to build Biofoundry India (BI) and where we see the facility add substantial value in supporting research, innovation, and entrepreneurship. We describe three key areas of our focus, harnessing the potential of non-expressing parts of the sequenced genomes, using deep learning in pathway reconstruction, and synthesis of enzymes and metabolites. Towards the end, we describe specific challenges in building such a facility in India and the path forward to mitigate some of those in working with the other biofoundries worldwide.

Organizing laboratory information to analyze the reproducibility of experimental workflows

“…Oligonucleotide synthesis, sequencing, and gene synthesis are some of the operations that have been industrialized resulting in faster and cheaper service than it is possible to achieve when performing these operations for individual projects. More recently, many leading academic institutions have invested in the development of biofoundries that are highthroughput facilities capable of executing complex research workflows rather than individual steps [43][44][45][46][47][48]. This transformation of the research enterprise should positively impact the reproducibility of research results.…”