The California Institute for Quantitative Biosciences (QB3) and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) have joined forces to accelerate the growth of synthetic biology, a new field that promises major new advances in preventing and treating disease, generating new energy sources, and preventing and mitigating environmental threats.

Opened in spring 2005 in a spacious, modern building in west Berkeley, the Berkeley Center for Synthetic Biology (BCSB) gives renowned scientists and engineers the chance to pool their talents and collaborate in new ways, with enormous potential benefits for California’s citizens in the form of advances in biomedicine, energy renewables, and economic growth.

A New Field Takes Shape at Berkeley

QB3 and LBNL scientists occupy lab space in a building renovated in 1997 for biotech research, previously leased by Bayer, featuring large labs, viral suites, and tissue culture rooms. UCSF Mission Bay and numerous biotech firms are nearby.

Synthetic biologists study the control and design of biological components and new organisms to solve a host of important health, energy, and environmental problems that cannot be solved using naturally occurring biological entities. The inherently multidisciplinary field draws on innovative research in chemistry, molecular biology, bioengineering, physics, and computer science.

QB3, UC Berkeley, and LBNL have taken the lead in expanding the field of synthetic biology, through several key developments.

• In 2006, the National Science Foundation provided a grant of $16 million over five years to create the Synthetic Biology Engineering Research Center (SynBERC), based at UC Berkeley and directed by Keasling, with collaborating researchers at MIT, Harvard, UC San Francisco, and Prairie View A&M University. Matching funds from industry and the participating universities bring the total five-year commitment to $20 million, with the NSF offering the possibility of a five-year extension.
• A $42.6 million five-year grant in 2004 from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to the Institute for OneWorld Health will create a powerful new approach to developing a more affordable, accessible cure for malaria, in partnership with UC Berkeley and Amyris Biotechnologies.
• Also in 2004, UC Berkeley signed a landmark agreement with the Samoan government to isolate the gene for prostratin, a chemical compound contained in the mamala tree that holds enormous therapeutic potential as an anti-AIDS drug. In sharing any royalties from future drug sales with the people of Samoa, the agreement set a precedent for biodiversity conservation and genetic research.
• LBNL created the first department of synthetic biology in a major scientific research institute in 2003.

Synthetic biology will transform the biotechnology, high-technology, pharmaceutical, and chemical industries as well as suppliers of genetic tools and custom DNA synthesis companies. The Center will partner with key companies in these sectors to speed technology transfer to industry.

BCSB Faculty Researchers

Jay Keasling, Center Director
A UC Berkeley Professor of Chemical Engineering and Bioengineering, Jay Keasling joined QB3 in 2000 and LBNL in April 2002 as a faculty scientist. The following summer he became head of the LBNL Synthetic Biology Department, with the mandate to solve real-world problems through the design of novel organisms and biologically-inspired systems. In spring 2005 he was named director of the Physical Biosciences Division at LBNL. His research has lead to major breakthroughs in the field of synthetic biology, including treatments for malaria, AIDS, and cancer as well as discoveries of new fuel resources.

Adam Arkin
Adam Arkin is a UC Berkeley Professor of Bioengineering, a QB3 faculty affiliate, and directs the $37M Virtual Institute for Microbial Stress and Survival, for LBNL’s Physical Biosciences Division, where he is a faculty scientist. He explores genetic and biochemical reaction network analysis and simulation, computational biology and genomics, control theory and biology, multichannel and cell-based biosensors. His aim is to develop software for designing new living systems from a library of validated interoperable genetic “parts” with specific functions.

Carlos Bustamante
A UC Berkeley Professor of Molecular and Cell Biology, Physics, and Chemistry, and a QB3 faculty affiliate, Carlos Bustamante is a senior faculty scientist at LBNL and heads the Advanced Microscopies Department in the Physical Biosciences Division. He is a pioneer in the field of mechanochemistry, devising methods to manipulate and study individual molecules of proteins, DNA, and RNA. By pulling, prodding, and twisting these molecules, Bustamante furthers our understanding of how cells and microorganisms work.

Daniel Fletcher
UC Berkeley Assistant Professor of Bioengineering Daniel Fletcher develops new techniques to deepen our understanding of a cell’s mechanical properties. Teasing out those underlying engineering principles could pay off with new drugs that throw a wrench into the works of diseased cells. Currently, Fletcher is studying the cellular mechanisms underlying giardiasis, a severe diarrheal illness prevalent in many developing countries, and leukemia, a cancer originating in bone marrow that results in the uncontrolled accumulation of immature and malfunctioning white blood cells. Fletcher is a faculty scientist at LBNL and is also a QB3 faculty affiliate.

Recruitment is planned for an additional senior faculty scientist for the Center.

Additional BCSB Members

Collaborating to Accelerate Discovery

QB3 and LBNL are uniquely qualified to help advance synthetic biology. QB3 provides infrastructure and administrative support for multidisciplinary research initiatives, including synthetic biology and computational biology. In 2003, LBNL created the first department of synthetic biology in a major scientific research institute and in 2005 founded a biosciences research facility with the BCSB as an anchor program. Together these two organizations represent enormous human talent and expertise in science, technology, and engineering.

For more information, contact Kristin Balder-Froid, LBNL, 510-486-6060, or Diane Leite, QB3, 510-643-5085.