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Emerging

Bio-Fabrication

Biology is becoming an engineering discipline. Design tissues in software, print them in the lab, test drugs without animals.

CAD for Life

Architects use AutoCAD to design buildings. Mechanical engineers use SolidWorks. Biologists are gaining the same capabilities - designing genetic circuits, tissue structures, and even organisms in software, then fabricating them in automated labs.

The Bits-to-Atoms Pipeline
Design
DNA sequences in software
Synthesize
Order custom DNA online
Fabricate
Cloud labs run experiments
Iterate
Analyze and repeat

Applications

Tissue Engineering
Clinical Trials

Printing scaffolds that cells colonize to form functional tissue. Skin, cartilage, and bone grafts entering clinical use.

Organ Fabrication
Research

Long-term goal of printing full organs for transplant. Current focus on simpler structures like bladders and blood vessels.

Drug Testing
Commercial

Printed tissue models replace animal testing. Organoids mimic human response more accurately than mice.

Food Production
Early Commercial

Cultured meat printed from animal cells without slaughter. Companies like Upside Foods have FDA approval.

Materials Science
Research

Bio-inspired materials with properties impossible to achieve synthetically. Spider silk, nacre analogs, self-healing materials.

Cloud Labs

No $5M lab? No problem. Design experiments in software and let robots execute them.

Emerald Cloud Lab

Remote-controlled biology lab. Design experiments in software, robots execute them.

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Strateos

Automated life science research platform for drug discovery.

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Transcriptic

Robotic cloud laboratory for synthetic biology (now part of Strateos).

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Bio-Design Platforms

Software tools for designing biological systems.

Benchling

Cloud platform for designing DNA sequences, managing experiments, and collaborating on research.

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Ginkgo Bioworks

Organism design platform - engineering cells to produce chemicals, materials, and medicines.

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Twist Bioscience

DNA synthesis and design tools. Order custom genes delivered to your lab.

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Milestones

2010

First synthetic organism created (Synthia - J. Craig Venter Institute)

2013

First 3D-printed human ear cartilage scaffold

2016

Organovo delivers first bioprinted liver tissue for drug testing

2019

Israeli team prints first vascularized human heart (miniature)

2022

3D bioprinted corneas enter human clinical trials

2023

FDA approves lab-grown meat for commercial sale (Upside Foods)

Engineering Life

Biology is the next frontier of engineering. We're tracking the tools that make it accessible.