Fostering Synthetic Biology standardisation through international collaboration

Project Information

BioRoboost

Grant agreement ID: 820699

DOI

10.3030/820699

Project closed

EC signature date 27 September 2018

Start date 1 October 2018

End date 30 September 2021

Funded under

• INDUSTRIAL LEADERSHIP - Leadership in enabling and industrial technologies – Biotechnology

Total cost

€ 2 177 587,50

EU contribution

€ 1 998 787,50

Coordinated by

UNIVERSITAT DE VALENCIA
Spain

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - BioRoboost (Fostering Synthetic Biology standardisation through international collaboration)

Reporting period: 2020-04-01 to 2021-09-30

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

Synthetic Biology (SB) is an engineering research field aiming at (re)designing biological circuits for applied purposes. The outstanding success of SB in the last years should not hide the difficulties in defining, promulgating and adopting biological standards: there are both historical and technical difficulties to reach that ambitious goal.
As with any other engineering field, it strongly relies on the use of well-defined, universal and robust standard components, having the difficulties in standardisation a bottleneck effect on the development of Synthetic Biology. The benefits of improving standardisation of biological systems are overwhelming, as, despite the different visions, there is a clear consensus on the dramatic boost even a moderate improvement in standardization would have in the establishment of the bio-economy and the 4th Industrial revolution at large. On this background, the specific objectives of BIOROBOOST include:
• The setup of an international collaborative network on SB standards with a strong momentum for a sustained engagement beyond the lifetime of the Project.
• Elaboration of a real-time catalogue of research needs on biological standards whose fulfilment demands international teamwork beyond the European realm.
• Coordination of existing material (eg repositories) and computational (eg databases, languages) resources for standardized biology along with harmonization of future initiatives.
• Stocktaking of ongoing standardisation practices aimed at promoting conceptual consensuses and technical (re)definition of biological standards and their metrology in live systems
• Developing and offering the academic and industrial SB community a usable, realistic and flexible toolbox of standardized biological assets, including chassis for specific applications.
• Anticipating societal ramifications and cultural reactions to standardised biology by engaging in a continuous conversation and informed debate with cognate stakeholders.

The development and adoption of standards along the lines identified by BIOROBOOST will increase industrial competitiveness, innovation and productivity of European industry, namely in the Bioetch realm, but also in other connected fields where SB constitutes an enabling driver.
Improving the predictability of biological design demands the development of an ecosystem of standards that will have an impact by:
- Reducing the perceived unreliability of engineering biology, due to the context-dependent and complex emergent character of living systems
- Allowing researchers to build ever more sophisticated devices and systems
- Promoting the translation of SB to socioeconomic and environmental impacts benefitting the whole society.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

Below we provide a short, non-comprehensive list of the main work achieved so far, as scheduled:
• Organisation of all the expected meetings, both physical and telematic. Coordination of all the partners and WPs.
• Organisation of all the planned workshops, round tables and a vast range of dissemination activities, invited conferences, interviews and other activities.
• Renewal of the project website, with the addition of the BIOCONTAINMENT finder. Promotion of all the social media networks with clear indicators (in twitter the project has 1.771 followers).
• Development of specific software and standardisation architectures, such as SEVA, the third version of which has recently been launched and published; or the Sqrutiny sketcher (a web-based tool to assist Synthetic Biology researchers on the task of ensuring their circuits are orthogonal between widely-studied bacterial chassis models), or SEGA platform (a standardized genome engineering platform that allows for predictable expression levels and rapid interchange of functional modules. These well-characterized modules were optimized for robust performance in the context of the bacterial genome).
• Engagement with the industrial sector and with the editors of scientific journals to both foster dialogue and identify challenges and formal requirements for standardisation
• Design and development of the exchange program in the frame of which students from the consortia have experienced -and been subjected to- a stay in a host laboratory to identify lab-to-lab differences.
• Engagement with the industrial sector, the ISO TC 276 on Biotechnology, and with the editors of scientific journals to both foster dialogue and identify challenges and formal requirements for standardisation.
• Promotion of the BioRoboost educational kit among secondary school students: 75 kits (each containing materials for 8 students) have been provided free of charge to 65 European secondary schools. In addition, 10 kits were sent to the Social Innovation Unit and the Stem Planet in Navarra
• Publication of the book "Standardisation in Synthetic Biology: a white book" with recommendations and useful information for policymakers and synbio practitioners.
• Edition and promotion of 18 short videos for the general public about Synthetic Biology, accumulating until now a total of 1.927 views.
• Elaboration of 23 newsletters with content about the project

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

The work done in Bioroboost has promoted a real progress beyond the state of the art. Thanks to the international collaboration, several results have been obtained, provoking a meaningful impact in Synthetic Biology.
The results after 3 years working to foster standardisation cover a wide range of questions, targeting different audiences: papers in scientific journals and web-based tools mainly addressed to SynBio practitioners ; or videos and educational kits to help non-expert people to understand what is Synthetic Biology and the basis to establish standards in such discipline.
Most important activities and events have been: the international Madrid Workshop on biological standardisation; the largest survey (38,000 respondents) on SynBio perception ever made, including gender issues; the collaboration with the COMBINE platform; the collaboration with NATO in terms of standards and biosecurity (a book on this topic will be co-authored by the coordinator) and the discussions with ISO TC 276 on Biotechnology; the development of SEVA 3.0 (http://seva-plasmids.com/); the platform Sqrutiny sketches (https://sqrutiny.crg.eu/); the platform SEGA: the Standardised Genome Architecture (https://sega-genomes.com/); and the biocontaintment finder (https://standardsinsynbio.eu/biocontainment-finder/ ).
The work done with editors in scientific journals; the focus on companies and the organisation of two business-oriented specific events; the Mètode Journal special issue on standardisation and the publication of the white book on Standardisation in Synthetic Biology.
The BioRoboost Educational kit was spread using The School Education Gateway and Scientix online platform in addition to the 100 printed copies that were sent to 65 different schools, being used by a total of 2.701 students around the world.
And the edition of 18 short videos explaining what SynBio is and the main applications and benefits (available at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnMsu1hJyEUbOLzG1FcpD7w/videos ).
All in all, the expected impacts have been covered.

 

BioRoboost Educational Kit

Cover of the White Book on Synthetic Biology