The Digest’s 10 Top Advanced Bioeconomy Markets & Predictions for 2020

5. Tools for biological engineers

If you think about the last 10 years in biology, there’s been a revolution in tactics and in technique — we can do more, better, faster, cheaper than ever, in almost every aspect of strain optimization, strain development and cost. In a lot of cases, we have done this by getting our existing discovery systems and tools to work faster, through automation and machine learning. But have we revolutionized the tools?

In October, we noted that Inscripta launched its Onyx Digital Genome Engineering platform, the world’s first fully automated benchtop instrument for genome-scale engineering. The CRISPR-mediated, massively parallel platform — which includes software, consumables, instrument, and assays — enables researchers to engineer microbial libraries containing the full breadth and scope of possible edit types, in their own labs. This new genome engineering platform will offer immediate and significant benefits that will support bio-industrial materials development and manufacturing, genome discovery, healthcare, and sustainability.

We see this not as the final step in the journey, but as almost the first step, if this were the space program, Onyx is Sputnik — no one’s done it, and everyone is going to have to catch up, and there’s going to be an advancement along these lines like we’ve never yet seen.