Evonetix announces early access program for semiconductor synthesized DNA

EVONETIX LTD (‘Evonetix’), the synthetic biology company bringing semiconductor technology to DNA synthesis, today announced the opening of its early access program for semiconductor synthesised DNA. Evonetix’s DNA synthesis capability brings together patented semiconductor chip design and proprietary, thermally controlled synthesis chemistry, which will be integral to the Company’s future gene synthesis platforms.

Evonetix’s proprietary process utilises a novel silicon chip to control the synthesis of DNA at many thousands of independent thermally controlled reaction sites, or ‘pixels’, on the chip surface. Combined with the Company’s patented chemistry, this approach enables the accurate synthesis of thousands of sequences on a single chip to meet the demand for complex libraries and assembly of long DNA, addressing the DNA supply bottleneck in the field of synthetic biology.

Researchers are invited to apply to be included in the Company’s early access program to receive some of the first DNA prepared using its technology and demonstrate the efficacy of Evonetix DNA in routine molecular biology workflows. The Company will then look to scale up the parallel synthesis capacity of its semiconductor chips as it works toward future full commercialization of its technology.

Matt Hayes, Founder and Chief Technology Officer at Evonetix, said: “We have been working on optimising the different elements of our technology ready to share DNA with researchers. Reaching this point in our development is a key milestone, paving the way for the expansion in scale that only semiconductor-based technologies can achieve.”

Colin McCracken, CEO of Evonetix added: “Biology is driving a revolution that will change the way we live and help solve some of the biggest problems faced by our planet today. At the core of this is the ability to deliver DNA better and faster to researchers working on these global challenges. The current model for DNA synthesis can’t deliver on the future demand for DNA. Building a platform capable of this requires highly parallel, distributed synthesis. Evonetix is ready to meet these challenges and open the door to the exciting next phase of our development.”

To apply to be included in the early access program, please visit: www.evonetix.com/access

ENDS

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Notes to Editors

About Evonetix Ltd – www.evonetix.com

Evonetix is reimagining biology by developing a radically different approach to gene synthesis – a highly parallel desktop platform to synthesise DNA at unprecedented accuracy and scale. The technology builds on scalability and density from the semiconductor industry to deliver a step-change in performance for the production of DNA. The company’s platform will place DNA synthesis in the hands of every researcher and change how DNA is accessed, made and used. This new paradigm in gene synthesis will facilitate and enable the rapidly growing field of synthetic biology.

The proprietary Evonetix approach utilises a silicon chip, made by MEMS processing, that integrates physics with biology, and controls the synthesis of DNA at many thousands of independently controlled reaction sites or ‘pixels’ on the chip surface in a highly parallel fashion. The approach is compatible with both chemical and enzymatic DNA synthesis. Following synthesis, strands are assembled on-chip into double-stranded DNA in a process that identifies and removes errors, providing accuracy that is several orders of magnitude better than the conventional approach.

The Evonetix DNA writer will be a desktop device, available to every researcher, and providing scalable, accurate DNA synthesis to enable biological systems to be engineered with unprecedented accuracy and scale – this is third-generation DNA synthesis.

About synthetic biology

With the huge increase in DNA sequence information available to mankind over the past ten years, there now exists an unprecedented opportunity to, for example, engineer metabolic pathways and organisms, improve industrial processes, create new processes and engineer genomes with new or improved traits. This opportunity, known as synthetic biology, is estimated to grow rapidly over the coming years, reaching $40 billion in value in the mid-2020s. Synthetic biology will have a massive impact across many industries and will be fundamental to helping us manage the Earth’s resources.

However, only a highly disruptive technology is likely to achieve the significant improvements in DNA synthesis required to enable and facilitate these opportunities. Evonetix believes that, by providing high-fidelity DNA at scale, without the need for post-synthesis error correction, it will be well placed to capture a significant part of the growing multibillion-dollar synthetic biology opportunity.