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Hi Barry, how do you guys know that this accounts for 10% of global DNA synthesis production? Some companies synthesize their own DNA with custom instruments an

Hi Barry, how do you guys know that this accounts for 10% of global DNA synthesis production? Some companies synthesize their own DNA with custom instruments and my guess would be that this production is unaccounted for.

skosuri 11y ago
Perhaps they mean synthetic genes from the major market players. It's definitely not 10% of all DNA synthesis. For example, oligos produced on microarrays alone can produce this much DNA on a single chip. I'm assuming they mean assembled, sequence verified DNA. For that, I'm not sure where they are getting their numbers.
- adenadel 11y ago
  I assumed that they meant unique sequence. The oligo pools for microarrays really only need to be synthesized a single time and a single oligo can be present multiple times. Synthesizing 100M bp is really trivial if you amplify any bit of DNA :)
  - skosuri 11y ago
    I wasn't talking about copies of the same sequence. Agilent for instance makes 1M oligo arrays, and you can get these at 200nt each with arbitrary sequence. That's 200M bp of synthetic DNA spec'd to design on a single chip.
- bcanton 11y ago
  Yep, thanks for clarifying. We're using the figures quoted by gene synthesis firms to get the 10%. That makes sense because we're buying 100Mbp of gene synthesis:) We buy lots more DNA in other forms (chip-synthesized oligos etc.).
danieltillett 11y ago
I supply our software to one company that I know is synthesising on the order of 100Mbp per year that is all internally so I know there is a fair bit of unaccounted gene synthesis going on.
- bcanton 11y ago
  When you say "all internally", do you mean that they are not a gene synthesis provider?
  - danieltillett 11y ago
    Yes that is right. I can’t really talk about what our customers are doing (other than saying it is legitimate), but they are handling everything internally for internal projects.

skosuri 11y ago

Perhaps they mean synthetic genes from the major market players. It's definitely not 10% of all DNA synthesis. For example, oligos produced on microarrays alone can produce this much DNA on a single chip. I'm assuming they mean assembled, sequence verified DNA. For that, I'm not sure where they are getting their numbers.

adenadel 11y ago
I assumed that they meant unique sequence. The oligo pools for microarrays really only need to be synthesized a single time and a single oligo can be present multiple times. Synthesizing 100M bp is really trivial if you amplify any bit of DNA :)
- skosuri 11y ago
  I wasn't talking about copies of the same sequence. Agilent for instance makes 1M oligo arrays, and you can get these at 200nt each with arbitrary sequence. That's 200M bp of synthetic DNA spec'd to design on a single chip.
bcanton 11y ago
Yep, thanks for clarifying. We're using the figures quoted by gene synthesis firms to get the 10%. That makes sense because we're buying 100Mbp of gene synthesis:) We buy lots more DNA in other forms (chip-synthesized oligos etc.).

danieltillett 11y ago

I supply our software to one company that I know is synthesising on the order of 100Mbp per year that is all internally so I know there is a fair bit of unaccounted gene synthesis going on.

bcanton 11y ago
When you say "all internally", do you mean that they are not a gene synthesis provider?
- danieltillett 11y ago
  Yes that is right. I can’t really talk about what our customers are doing (other than saying it is legitimate), but they are handling everything internally for internal projects.