Evonetix, the synthetic biology company, and ADI are to work together on the advancement and commercial scale-up of Evonetix’s MEMS-based ICs and accelerate the development of Evonetix’s first product, a DNA desktop writer.

Evonetix’s IC controls the synthesis of DNA at many thousands of independently controlled reaction sites or ‘pixels’ on the chip surface in a highly parallel fashion. The two companies began working together in January 2019.

“Evonetix is a pioneer in reimagining biology and developing a radically different approach to synthesising long-chain DNA at unprecedented accuracy and scale,” says ADI svp Pat O’Doherty, “this collaboration provides Analog Devices with an opportunity to enter the growing synthetic biology market. Our work together is aimed at increasing the speed and reducing the cost of gene assembly to provide novel strategies that can be used to produce affordable medications and treat a wide range of diseases globally.”

ADI and Evonetix  agreed to extend the collaboration as Evonetix continues to work with Analog Garage, ADI’s corporate innovation lab, to jointly develop an integrated solution which includes the MEMS platform, an application specific integrated circuit (ASIC) to miniaturise the control electronics, and flow cell.

ADI will assist with the commercial scale-up of the technology, and manufacture devices for the desktop DNA writers.

The opportunities available to synthetic biology in areas as diverse as pharmaceuticals and drug discovery, industrial biotech, specialty chemicals, renewables, agriculture and materials science are currently being held back by the ability to create de novo high-fidelity DNA at scale.

Evonetix’s DNA synthesis technology, which will be sold to laboratories as a ‘plug and play’ desktop instrument, will synthesise DNA at unprecedented accuracy, scale and speed, accelerating scientists’ ability to use biology on a scale not currently possible and influencing a large impact on global health