NIST workshop at Stanford mulls ‘weights and measures’ for biotechnology
Just as defining the meter, kilogram and second helped lay the foundation for modern commerce, new measures and standards are needed to fuel the growth of the 21st Century bioeconomy.
The desire to create these new metrics brought more than 100 researchers from academia, industry and government to Stanford University on March 31st to launch a consortium convened by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, or NIST.
NIST is a part of the U.S. Department of Commerce. It develops benchmark standards for everything from the fat content of peanut butter to the breaking strength of steel.
“We are not a regulatory agency. We create standards to support commerce but we play no role in establishing regulations,” said Dr. Sarah Munro, one of several NIST leaders partnering with faculty at Stanford to lay the groundwork for this inaugural gathering of the Synthetic Biology Standards Consortium (SBSC).
The emerging field of synthetic biology is formalizing how DNA, proteins and other biomolecules are used to make new products and processes ranging from therapeutic microbes to building bricks made by mushrooms.
“Companies who might otherwise compete can also work together to develop standards that benefit all,” said Dr. Matthew Munson, another SBSC leader from NIST.
Attendees at the open, public, voluntary SBSC launch met to begin creating the equivalent of weights and measures for building things using bits and pieces of molecular biomachinery.
“One day it will be as easy for a student to start a biotechnology company in their dorm room as it is to launch a software company today,” said Drew Endy, an associate professor of bioengineering at Stanford and liaison to the NIST consortium. “But to make it happen we have to enable everyone to work together by reliably sharing, reusing and cooperating. ”
The SBSC event sought to begin forming a new community in the broader field of metrology, which is the science of measurement. As several speakers attested many aspects of standardization remain challenging in these early days of biometrology.
“How do you do something in one lab and take it over to another and have it work exactly the same?” said Traci Haddock, a scientist with the International Genetically Engineered Machine (iGEM) Competition, which challenges students of all ages to use synthetic biology in imaginative ways.
J. William Efcavitch, chief scientific officer of Molecular Assemblies, a synthetic biology startup, suggested that biotechnology today is a realm of recipes in which the ingredients are not well defined, nor is how they should be mixed.
“Anyone who has cooked knows that, if you are mixing A, B and C, it can make a difference if you mix A and B then C or stir them all in together,” Efcavitch said.
Joseph McAuliffe, an analytical scientist for DuPont Industrial Biosciences, said this puts a premium on training. “The problem of establishing and developing a skill level in the use of instruments is real,” he said.
One of the goals of this inaugural event was bringing researchers from small and large companies together with their academic and government counterparts. Another was to begin extending this standard-setting effort beyond U.S. borders.
“This work has to be done in an international context to the greatest degree possible,” said Professor Paul Freemont with the Center for Synthetic Biology and Innovation at the Imperial College of London.
The SBSC launch allowed participants to pitch a series of potential focus areas, such as creating open standards for the automated equipment used in laboratories.
At the days’ end researchers selected six initiatives for near-term action. Among these were standards for the exchange of digital biological information. This could lead to the equivalent of an “app store” for purchasing DNA instructions for making such things as vaccines, materials, drugs or biosensors.
“This is just the start,” said Dr. Marc Salit, leader of the NIST effort in this space. “We’re inviting anyone with a stake in this bioeconomy to bring us their standards needs so we can work together to create solutions.”
To learn more about the workshop visit the Synthetic Biology Standards Consortium: http://jimb.stanford.edu/sbsc-kick-off-0315
Or read the Federal Register notice
