The Synthetic Biology for Growth programme was established by the UK research councils following recommendations on synthetic biology research and investment from UK government. It consisted of four streams of investment:
In total, the Synthetic Biology for Growth programme (SBfG) represented investments of £102 million, including:
The SBfG programme consisted of four streams of investment:
There were a number of important developments of direct relevance to synthetic biology research in the UK, including:
To implement the roadmap recommendations, deliver on the investment from government and taking heed of the advice from the Synthetic Biology Leadership Council, the UK research councils came together to produce the business case for the Synthetic Biology for Growth Programme.
Six SBRCs, representing a total investment of £70.5 million, were allocated funding over five years to boost national synthetic biology research capacity and ensure that there is diverse expertise to stimulate innovation in this area.
Aim: to develop new techniques, technologies and reagents that will allow biologically-based products to be made easily, quickly and cheaply, and in sufficient quantities to make them useful.
Aim: to provide sustainable routes to important chemicals that modern society needs. They aim to use synthetic biology to engineer bacteria to convert gases that are all around us, such as carbon monoxide (CO), carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4), into more desirable and useful molecules, reducing our reliance on petrochemicals.
Aim: to establish internationally-linked DNA registries for sharing information about plant specific parts and simple testbeds. The development and exchange of new foundational tools and parts will directly contribute to the engineering of new traits in plants.
Aim: to build in-house expertise in synthetic biology in mammalian systems for use in areas such as:
Aim: to bring scientists together to design and engineer biological parts, devices and systems for sustainable fine and speciality chemicals production. This includes new products and intermediates for drug development, agricultural chemicals and new materials for sustainable manufacturing.
Aim: to utilise state-of-the-art principles of biosystems design and engineering. This is in order to develop:
Two phases of strategic capital investments in DNA synthesis totalling £18 million were made to:
Aim: to provide end-to-end design, construction and validation of large gene constructs (up to 1 million base pairs) for academia and industry, based on the automation of technologies.
Aim: to develop an experimental platform to enable a standardised framework for DNA synthesis, gene and genome assembly and assembly verification.
Aim: to develop a high throughput, automated workflow for synthesising genes and DNA parts in bacteria, fungus, plant and mammalian cells.
Aim: to up to £2 million to invest in a robotic platform to automate assembly of short DNA fragments into expressible genes. This includes the picking, growth and analysis of DNA from bacterial colonies.
Aim: to support the design, generation and exploitation of high-value compounds and bioactives obtained from plants and microbes.
Aim: to establish a platform to support a suite of synthetic biology software tools, allowing the seamless integration of hardware, management and analysis of generated data. This is for the purpose of building a professional DNA synthesis workflow.
Aim: to enable the rapid design and synthesis of multiple varied DNA circuits (for example, metabolic pathways, biosensors, counting or memory devices) and interrogate the utility of these circuits within host cell chassis via an array of assays.
Aim: to enhance the national capacity of synthetic DNA design and manufacture, and to ensure the UK is internationally competitive and increase both national and international collaboration. It brings together three strong software teams across the UK to develop national hardwired and software infrastructure for UK DNA Foundries.
Aim: to analyse DNA made by modern ultra-high throughput chemical methods and optimise the process, and explore new ways to make large pieces of DNA.
Two capital investments of £1 million each were made to the two BBSRC and EPSRC Centres for Doctoral Training (CDTs) in synthetic biology at Oxford, Bristol and Warwick universities, and University College London (UCL). The funding provided equipment to enhance student training at the CDTs, which are world-leading training environments for students of synthetic biology.
Up to £1 million capital funding to enhance this CDT, including a dedicated synthetic biology laboratory in Oxford accessible to all students throughout their PhD and specialist facilities in Warwick and Bristol.
Up to £1 million in capital funding for the EPSRC CDT in Bioprocess Engineering Leadership at UCL for the acquisition of state-of-the-art bioprocess and analytical equipment and establishment of dedicated training laboratories.
£10 million capital funding was made available for investment through the UK Innovation and Science Seed Fund mechanism (previously the Rainbow Seed Fund, managed by Midven), to support synthetic biology start-up companies and ‘pre-companies’.
To develop the strategy for the implementation and delivery of the capital monies through the SBfG programme, the RCUK Synthetic Biology Working Group was established, under the direction of the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC). This group met regularly and comprised representatives from:
• BBSRC
• the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC)
• the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC)
• the Medical Research Council (MRC)
• the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC)
• observers from Innovate UK and the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (DSTL)
Last updated: 1 December 2023
