DNA synthesis at 10 cents per letter

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technologiclee

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Nov 21, 2015, 6:27:51 PM11/21/15
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http://www.wired.com/2015/11/making-dna/
"When Twist launches its beta program in 2016, it will offer gene synthesis at 10 cents per letter with a guaranteed turnaround time of 10 days."

"Moreover, the silicon wafer is cleverly optimized for the second step of gene synthesis—the stitching of oligos together—because Twist’s engineers figured out how to cut down on moving tiny volumes of liquid. Twist’s proprietary machine, a small-car sized system that WIRED wasn’t allowed to photograph, deposits one oligo into each of the 100 or so holes inside of a nanowell."

Is there any DIY system capable of this? What would it take to do that? What is the basic mechanism of moving the fluid in this system?

Brian Degger

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Nov 21, 2015, 8:28:31 PM11/21/15
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Why diy at 10cpb?cheap enough for 30c per aa. A 100aa peptide is $300 l (plus promoters etc)

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Matt Lawes

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Nov 21, 2015, 8:48:50 PM11/21/15
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What am I missing? I thought prices have been 10c a base for a while .....

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Dakota Hamill

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Nov 21, 2015, 8:52:45 PM11/21/15
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I doubt there is a DIY system capable of matching their "small car-sized system".  But, never stop dreaming!  Someday...

Matt Lawes

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Nov 21, 2015, 8:57:58 PM11/21/15
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Fair enough, but as a consumer I don't care how small or large their machine is. Quality and price are all I'm concerned about. And I recall 10c a base as being very standard pricing. Am I wrong?

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Dakota Hamill

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Nov 21, 2015, 9:03:02 PM11/21/15
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Sorry I was replying to the OP's question, I agree Matt, I've always heard 10 cents per base pair as a standard in many articles...for about 5 years now.   

Yuriy

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Nov 22, 2015, 12:52:29 AM11/22/15
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If you look at all of the DARPA funded R&D synthesis companies, the promised standard is ~$0.05/b.p. for the near future.

Anyone ever thought about what each bp costs?

Francis Lee

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Nov 22, 2015, 2:31:27 PM11/22/15
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maybe for oligos, but certainly not for gene synthesis.

IDT ultramers which maxes out @ 200 bp go for ~ 0.16/bp if you order in bulk.
Genscript is @ 0.35/bp for gene synthesis


On Sat, Nov 21, 2015 at 8:50 PM, Matt Lawes <ma...@insysx.com> wrote:

Matt Lawes

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Nov 22, 2015, 3:15:19 PM11/22/15
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Ahh! That makes more sense. Where are companies like Gen9 coming in pricewise per bp?
>matt

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Mega [Andreas Stuermer]

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Nov 22, 2015, 4:32:00 PM11/22/15
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Most companies have 0.23$ to 0.36$ per bp atm. Gen9 was 0.26$ last time we checked for bigger bricks (10kbp).

Bryan Jones

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Nov 22, 2015, 11:49:38 PM11/22/15
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gBlocks from IDT are ~$0.15 /bp. They go up to 2kb, and I've had good luck with them.

Sebastian S Cocioba

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Nov 23, 2015, 12:01:00 AM11/23/15
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The Life Technologies (now Thermo-Fisher) has there GeneArt Gene Strings that compete with gBlocks in either speed, size, or price. I use them exclusively and work well. You will need a non-residential address (business or industrial) else they will not ship...but thats a whole different can of worms. 

Sebastian S. Cocioba
CEO & Founder
New York Botanics, LLC

Nick R

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Nov 23, 2015, 2:28:08 AM11/23/15
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At 10c/bp wouldn't it be $30 for a 100 aa peptide?

Koeng

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Nov 23, 2015, 12:48:30 PM11/23/15
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Only if you synthesize 1000bp. For example, if you synthesize 500bp, its $0.18 /bp. But yea, I've had very good luck with them.

Sebastian- is there any reason why you use GeneArt Strings insteads of gBlocks?

-Koeng

On Sunday, November 22, 2015 at 8:49:38 PM UTC-8, Bryan Jones wrote:
gBlocks from IDT are ~$0.15 /bp. They go up to 2kb, and I've had good luck with them.

On Sun, Nov 22, 2015 at 1:31 PM Francis Lee <franci...@gmail.com> wrote:
maybe for oligos, but certainly not for gene synthesis.

IDT ultramers which maxes out @ 200 bp go for ~ 0.16/bp if you order in bulk.
Genscript is @ 0.35/bp for gene synthesis


On Sat, Nov 21, 2015 at 8:50 PM, Matt Lawes <ma...@insysx.com> wrote:

What am I missing? I thought prices have been 10c a base for a while .....

Sent from my T-Mobile Android device

On Nov 21, 2015 8:30 PM, Brian Degger <brian....@gmail.com> wrote:

Why diy at 10cpb?cheap enough for 30c per aa. A 100aa peptide is $300 l (plus promoters etc)

On 21 Nov 2015 23:27, "technologiclee" <technol...@gmail.com> wrote:
http://www.wired.com/2015/11/making-dna/
"When Twist launches its beta program in 2016, it will offer gene synthesis at 10 cents per letter with a guaranteed turnaround time of 10 days."

"Moreover, the silicon wafer is cleverly optimized for the second step of gene synthesis—the stitching of oligos together—because Twist’s engineers figured out how to cut down on moving tiny volumes of liquid. Twist’s proprietary machine, a small-car sized system that WIRED wasn’t allowed to photograph, deposits one oligo into each of the 100 or so holes inside of a nanowell."

Is there any DIY system capable of this? What would it take to do that? What is the basic mechanism of moving the fluid in this system?

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Brian Degger

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Nov 23, 2015, 1:48:35 PM11/23/15
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Yeah. .. miscalculation on my part.

Maximus

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Nov 29, 2015, 10:23:39 PM11/29/15
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Haven't heard of any DIY systems for DNA synthesis yet but I think DNA separation by silica adsorption is part of the method. It might be worth looking into for anyone interested in making such a system. I'm sure both community and industry labs would be very interested in something like that!
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Dennis Oleksyuk

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May 16, 2016, 9:42:37 AM5/16/16
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Jake, what would be the expensive consumables?

On Sun, May 15, 2016 at 2:21 AM Jake <jake...@mail.com> wrote:
Way cheaper to just order them.  You can get old oligo synthesizers for next to nothing if you look hard enough.  But you can't buy the consumables for a reasonable price unless you want to start a company and do it full time.  Even then you'd be using old tech and couldn't compete in the market.

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Nathan McCorkle

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May 17, 2016, 12:34:05 PM5/17/16
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On May 15, 2016 1:21 AM, "Jake" <jake...@mail.com> wrote:
>
> Way cheaper to just order them.  You can get old oligo synthesizers for next to nothing if you look hard enough.  But you can't buy the consumables for a reasonable price unless you want to start a company and do it full time.  Even then you'd be using old tech and couldn't compete in the market.

Reagents and waste stream disposal costs are much too great to deal with unless you're going to utilize such a machine very often and have a steady stream of money coming in to pay for things. Acetonitrile, very-very-dry gas for flushing the reaction equipment and controlling valves (water looks like the hydroxyl on a nucleotide and terminates chain synthesis), and I haven't even got to the activation acid or a few other required items.

How I know? I have a synthesizer sitting unused for 2 years because I don't want to deal with all that annoyance (when all I want to do it is design and validation of genetic constructs). 

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