Known as SynbiCITE, the London-based center is funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, and the Technology Strategy Council. So far, the new center brings together 17 other UK universities and 13 corporate partners, including heavyweights such as Microsoft, GlaxoSmithKline, Syngenta, Shell and Agilent Technologies, as well as small and medium-sized enterprises.

Paul Freemont, co-director of SynbiCITE, said the research will be milestone project oriented and reflect investor demand, in close collaboration with industry partners. He predicts that industry will be most interested in new products and tools that accelerate pathway engineering, harnessing the latest genomic and metagenomic information to solve the problem of producing useful materials rapidly and at scale.

Stephen Laderman, director of Agilent Technologies’ Molecular Tools Laboratory, said the new venture is exciting and the industry is keen to participate in the expectation that it will result in engineered organisms, components and design methods with innovative applications. He noted that companies have benefited from advances in synthetic biology, especially in the area of bioprocessing.

Paul Freemont said the joint venture is open to other partners who did not participate in the first round. All partners, both industry and academia, have committed to funding the project in cash and in-kind. While it’s impossible to predict the most successful outcomes, Freemont said that by working closely together, researchers in academia and industry can ensure commercial needs align with research.

Synthetic biology was listed as a priority in the UK government’s 2015 science plan.