Elegen Corporation proposes to develop a novel instrument that will quickly and inexpensively synthesize DNA. Elegen's approach exploits an innovative microfluidic platform, enabling us to create a simple benchtop system that can be deployed in the laboratory. Development of many biomedical applications ? as well as the entire field of synthetic biology ? typically involves iterating through a design-build-test loop requiring large quantities of custom synthetic DNA with every iteration. The turnaround time (TAT) between ordering and receiving DNA products from vendors can be several weeks and thus remains as the critical bottleneck in this loop. This long TAT severely impedes the pace of development of new diagnostics and therapeutics. Elegen's technology will shorten TAT from weeks to days by increasing flexibility in fulfilling orders and will also reduce cost. These improvements will have a transformative impact on research efficiency and will enable scientists to bring biomedical innovations to patients much faster than is currently possible. Elegen has already separately demonstrated all the key technology components needed to implement the proposed system. In this project, the company will integrate and optimize these components and demonstrate a fully-functional prototype system.
Elegen proposes to develop a benchtop instrument that will lower the cost and greatly increase the speed of creating synthetic DNA, and ultimately enable scientists to cost-effectively synthesize genes in their own labs. This capability will accelerate the development of a broad array of new medical diagnostic tests and therapies. !
