Discussion

SynbiCITE is the UK’s synthetic biology innovation and knowledge centre. Located at Imperial College London, SynbiCITE is a national resource for its university and industrial partners working in synthetic biology. The centre funded by the RCUK and its founding partners was created in 2013 to facilitate the industrial translation of synthetic biology research. SynbiCITE’s mission is to channel ideas from the lab into the marketplace, while generating a critical mass of entrepreneurial and commercial activity around synthetic biology, with the goal of creating start-ups, growing SMEs and developing this new industry in the UK. To meet this challenge SynbiCITE provides a range of innovation programmes supporting early stage translational research with access to facilities, funding and, business and commercial development through a number of educational courses. These have been specifically designed to give academics and scientists working with synthetic biology in the life sciences the skills and tools to help them commercialising their ideas. A key resource available at SynbiCITE is the Foundry, which provides automated end-to-end design, construction, characterisation and validation of synthetic biologic components.