SynbiCITE

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SynbiCITE is the UK's national Innovation and Knowledge Centre (IKC) for the adoption and use of synthetic biology by industry.^[1] It also helps to incubate new businesses by providing them with space and accelerator programs, including funding, training and mentoring.

SynbiCITE was created in 2013 after a UK-wide competition to find the most suitable host university with the best strategic plan.^[2] Initially funded by the government and other partners for five years, the organization was intended to become self-sustaining by 2018.^[3][4] In April 2016, SynbiCITE opened the Synthetic Biology Foundry, a Research Councils UK-funded facility providing remote gene design, construction, and validation services using laboratory robotics. Based on a similar facility at MIT, it is the first commercial facility in the United Kingdom using laboratory automation to provide on-demand services specifically for synthetic biology.^[5][6]

In 2019, the DNA Foundry opened at Imperial College London's White City Campus.^[7] Its goal is to enable businesses to outsource DNA manufacture, design, and testing and accelerate the development of DNA-based technologies in the UK. SynbiCITE also supported the development of OpenCell, which provides affordable biotechnology labs using shipping containers in White City.^[8]

SynbiCITE is headquartered at Imperial College London. It is funded by a public-private partnership between the EPSRC, BBSRC, and Innovate UK, as well as several industrial and private investors.^[9] It is run and managed by a board consisting of two co-directors (Professor Richard Kitney and Professor Paul Freemont).

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