Leap in DNA synthesis slashes time to build new genetic sequences

Cool to see this from Brian Hie, who was doing interesting computational bio research at Meta's FAIR before they axed it. Interesting that this is work on the more physical/testing/manufacturing level than the computational, but it seems very useful.

It's hard to quantify the impact of new foundational tools like this at launch. Most of the time it falls flat, but even the successes are difficult. For example, CRISPR has led to interesting experiments and treatments on the way, but the effect does feel muted compared to the initial predictions. But there are many other related techniques that can be pulled out of this original research (e.g. dCas9 which lets you operate without cutting).

Similar story with cellular reprogramming.

Eventually one of these things will surface that will be GPU/transistor type innovations.

> Sequences of that length can encode entire biochemical pathways, laying the groundwork for engineered microbes that manufacture drugs, biofuels, or specialty chemicals, and eventually to the assembly of vast DNA constructs approaching complete artificial genomes.

Never mind artificial genomes - let me have a snapshot of my DNA sequenced and re-created from scratch say 20 years later - telomeres and all.

cool, but i dont feel like dna synthesis is a rate limiting step. unless im missing something, its sort of a micro-optimization that is likely to cost more since you still need an oligo synthesizer (and you will need to write out more bases)

This is not a practical challenge - I order DNA from Twist at these ‘large’ scales trivially without needing to do oligo hybridization magic. The DNA arrives in a month - but considering how many oligos sidewinder calls for, not clear how they could be faster.

I can't be the only one reading this who doesn't have alarm bells going off in their heads.

Bad-ass! Getting small seqs "oglios" is cheap/fast. (as stated in the article) (IDT or Sigma will courier it to you same or next day, and is ~$10 per) But longer ones is much more expensive!

So... is the "Generative AI" tie in (Mentioned many times, starting at the top of the article) used mainly get funding and press? The core part of this seems to have nothing to do with AI. I am sus this is bullshit marketing based on #1: How many times I've clicked an article, and have AI blasted all over it for sus reasons, and #2: Being able to cheaply and reliably synthesis custom DNA seqs longer than a few hundred/thousand bps is a broadly useful tech for current and future applications.

So: #1: This is really good news. #2: Do better with the hype/bull. It undermines your credibility. So now I start questioning whether this works as well as advertised, and what else they are being shady about.

Nobel for Seeman and Guo!

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> that predictive models are now producing faster than anyone can construct them.

Erm ... you have A T C G. You can have a gazillion of combinations there.

Of course BY DEFAULT it will always be slower than ANY combination you would desire to have - and you most definitely do not need AI slop to have that either. Do we need AI slop for generating any permutation of those 4 letters now? So what is the point of stating "can construct".

IF the synthesis method works, then that is the focus to be debated, not the AI slop is our master-thinker now.

> “We really want this to be an enabling platform,” says Robinson. “We want people to do cool things with the technology.”

And I think they patented this (if it really works), so ... enabling platform, right.

Interestingly the article omits many key questions to be asked here. If the method already works as-is, why isn't everyone using it? If it is cheaper and faster, then logically it would already be used or usable.