Engineering Biology

NIST Gaithersburg

February 12, 2020
Bioeconomy

• Biotechnology added as “Industry of the Future” in 

Administration FY21 R&D Budget Priority Memo

• Bioeconomy – biotechnology innovation to drive economic 

growth and improve lives

• NIST mission (industry), expertise, and capabilities are 

aligned and staff are highly engaged with our Federal 

partners

• DOD – Biotechnology named as modernization priority

• DOD – Synthetic Biology Manufacturing Innovation 

Institute, in addition to BioFabUSA

• DOE – Innovation Xlab for Biomanufacturing
NSTC Subcommittees

• Biosciences Subcommittee (NIST, NSF, DOE, DOD, others)

• Co-Chair Synthetic Biology (Sheng Lin-Gibson)

• Interagency Workshop, Oct 18, 2019

• Review needs, gaps, and solutions

• Identify opportunities for interagency coordination

• Recommendations for Bioeconomy development

• Co-Chair Biological Data (Michael Tarlov)

• Interagency Workshop, June 12, 2019

• Define needs and best practices for biological data

• Develop a roadmap for robust sharing and reuse of data

• Co-Chair Federal workforce (Rebecca Zangmeister)

• Biodefense Subcommittee (NIST, DOD, others)
Bioeconomy – NIST programs

Support for the Bioeconomy $30.5 M

• MML Divisions: 

• Biosystems and Biomaterials Division

• Biomolecular Measurement Division

• IBBR (UMD) / NIST JIMB (SLAC)

• Significant Activities in PML, NCNR, ITL, CTL, EL

• Biomanufacturing Initiative ($10M /yr)

• Engineering Biology IMS ($1M /yr)

• Engineering Biology Initiative ($4M /yr)

• Regenerative Medicine ($2.5M /yr)

• NIIMBL ManufacturingUSA ($70M, $129M+ match)

• BioFabUSA (DOD Manufacturing USA)

• SynBio MII (planned DOD Manufacturing USA)
Engineering Biology

H.R 4373 Engineering Biology Research and Development Act (2019). DOC/NIST shall -

• Establish a bioscience research program to advance SRMs and measurements and to 

create new data tools, techniques, and processes...;

• Provide access to ... advanced or unique equipment, services, materials, and other 

resources to industry, ... higher education,... and government agencies to perform 

research and testing; and

• Provide technical expertise to inform the potential development of guidelines or 

safeguards for new products, processes, and systems of engineering biology

Engineering Biology / Synthetic Biology

The application of engineering design principles and practices to biological 

systems, including molecular and cellular systems, to advance fundamental 

understanding of complex natural systems and to enable novel or optimize 

functions and capabilities.

Biomanufacturing

The utilization of biological systems to develop new and advance existing 

products, tools, and processes at commercial scale.
*. Agile BioFoundry

** Somatic Cell Genome Editing

DOE

DoD 

NSF

NIH

NIST

1998 2004 2006 2008 2010 2012 2014 2016 2018 2019

Metabolic 

Engineering

Directed 

Evolution

Cell Manufacturing

EBRC

DARPA Living Foundries

DARPA BTO (1000 Molecules) 

NIIMBL 

BioFabUSA

NIST Genome in a Bottle (GIAB) 

DOE AF*

4 Bioenergy Res Cent

First iGEM

Competition SynBERC

Center for Biorenewable Chemicals (CBiRC)

SCGE**

Genome Editing Consortium

URoL - Syn Cell

NIBIB created (2017: Syn Bio for Engineering Applications)

Increased private investment (venture capital)

3 Bioenergy Research Centers

Center for Cellular Construction

DARPA convenes 

first Synthetic 

Biology meeting

Gates Foundation funds efforts 

to produce artemisinin 

EngBio - Selected US Investments
EngBio – Grand Challenge

Develop a new measurement infrastructure that 

provides quantitative metrics of complex living systems 

and processes including

tools, platforms, and data to predictively engineer 

biological systems; 

and global standards to accelerate R&D to 

commercialization.

• Build and deploy unique platforms that integrate

Flexible automation

Innovative measurements

Manufacturing technologies

Machine learning / Artificial intelligence

• Develop and deploy measurement assurance 

strategies and “living” cell-based reference materials
EngBio – Measurement Platforms
EngBio – “Living” Reference Materials

Genome in 

a Bottle 

(GIAB) cells 

& DNA

Mixed 

pathogens

Fully consented 

cancer & normal 

cells

Yeast with 

ERCC insert

Jurkat cells 

with different 

VCN 

Currently available

• Interlaboratory testing (understand measurement accuracy, precision, & robustness)

• Assess assay performance and foster new measurement technologies for quality assurance

• Tools for promoting cross-industry collaborations to address shared measurement problems

CHO cells that 

express

NISTmAb
Highlight

“Organizing genome engineering for the gigabase scale”

Bryan Bartley, Jacob Beal (Raytheon BBN Technologies), 

Jonathan R. Karr (Icahn School of Medicine), Elizabeth A. 

Strychalski (NIST)

Nature Communications, on-line, 2020.

• From engineering genes to engineering genomes

• Challenge: coordination and integration of workflows 

and large research teams

• Adopt and extend representations for designs, 

assembly plans, samples, data, and workflows

• New technologies for data curation and quality control
Highlight

“N-Terminal amino acid binding (NAAB) reagents for 

use in next-generation protein sequencing devices”

John Marino, Zvi Kelman, William O’Dell, Nicholas 

Callahan

NIST Technology Maturation Accelerator Program

• Transformative approach to proteomic analysis, beyond 

genomics

• Create novel, protein-based sensors to sequence 

proteins at high-speed and low-cost

• Patented and licensed amino-acid-recognition reagents 

via evolutionary selection
DISCUSSION