Gen9 Expands Scientific Advisory Board to Advance Synthetic Biology

CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Gen9, Inc., a pioneer in the development of scalable technologies for gene synthesis, today announced the newest members of its already impressive Scientific Advisory Board (SAB). In addition to advising the company on product development and future directions, SAB members will participate in selecting the winners of the G-Prize, which celebrates and supports innovation in the constructive application of synthetic DNA libraries.

“With any other technology, performing these types of experiments at this scale would have been prohibitively expensive. I am pleased to be joining the Gen9 SAB and look forward to working with this talented team to advance the use and application of this exciting platform for massively parallel DNA synthesis.”

Gen9 is a privately held company with a portfolio of next-generation gene synthesis technologies that enable the high-throughput, automated production of DNA constructs at lower cost and higher accuracy than previous methods. Together, these technologies form the foundation of the Gen9 BioFab® platform, which has the capacity to generate tens of thousands of synthetic gene fragments in just a few square feet of laboratory space. Today, Gen9 is manufacturing and shipping double-stranded GeneBits™ DNA fragments which are being used across a number of transformative applications in pharmaceuticals, fine chemicals, enzymes, agriculture and bio-fuels.

“We are honored to have the insight and experience of these renowned inventors, entrepreneurs and scientists to help Gen9 advance towards our goal of transforming synthetic biology,” said Joseph Jacobson, Associate Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and co-founder of Gen9.

With its newest additions, the members of the Gen9 Scientific Advisory Board include:

David Baker, Professor of Biochemistry, University of Washington; Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator; and elected to the National Academy of Sciences
George M. Church, Professor of Genetics, Harvard Medical School; Director of the Center for Computational Genetics; co-founder of Gen9, Knome, LS9; and elected to the National Academy of Sciences
Christopher Emig, Stanford University graduate student in bioengineering; former member, Codon Devices; winner of the David Adler Award for Outstanding Master’s Degree in Electrical Engineering
Drew Endy, Assistant Professor of Bioengineering, Stanford University; Board president of the BioBricks Foundation; co-founder of the International Genetically Engineered Machines (iGEM) competition; and co-founder of Gen9
Joseph M. Jacobson, Associate Professor, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; co-PI of the Center for Bits and Atoms; leader of the Molecular Machine Group; co-founder of Gen9, E Ink, Kovio; and recipient of the 2000 Gutenberg Prize
Michael C. Jewett, Assistant Professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering, Northwestern University and recipient of the 2011 David and Lucile Packard Fellowship in Science and Engineering
Sriram Kosuri, Staff Scientist, Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering and Harvard Medical School and co-founder of OpenWetWare, a website dedicated to the sharing of information in the biological sciences

“I have been using Gen9’s next-generation gene synthesis technology in my lab to build and evaluate proteins for clinical and other uses in a high-throughput way,” said David Baker, Gen9 SAB member and Professor of Biochemistry at the University of Washington. “With any other technology, performing these types of experiments at this scale would have been prohibitively expensive. I am pleased to be joining the Gen9 SAB and look forward to working with this talented team to advance the use and application of this exciting platform for massively parallel DNA synthesis.”

To advance the application of DNA constructs in novel applications, Gen9 has sponsored the G-Prize, a contest open to researchers working at academic or public-benefit organizations. Entries will be judged by a panel of experts including members of the Gen9 SAB. For more information, please visit www.gen9bio.com/g-prize.

About Gen9

Gen9 is building on advances in synthetic biology to power a scalable fabrication capability that will significantly increase the world’s capacity to compile DNA content. The privately held company’s next-generation DNA synthesis technology, BioFab® platform, allows for the high-throughput, automated production of DNA constructs at lower cost and higher accuracy than previous methods on the market. Founded by world leaders in synthetic biology, Gen9 aims to ensure the constructive application of synthetic biology in industries ranging from enzyme and chemical production to pharmaceuticals and biofuels. Gen9 is based in Cambridge, Massachusetts and can be found online at www.gen9bio.com.

Gen9, GeneBits and BioFab are trademarks or registered trademarks of Gen9, Inc. All other brands may be trademarks of their respective holders.