We caught up with Jason Lehmann, Senior Product Marketing Manager at Telesis Bio, as he shares how our synthetic biology workstation, the BioXp™ system, can accelerate your time to results by optimizing production workflows and overcoming synthesis bottlenecks.
How do complex targets challenge antibody development pipelines?
Nearly one-half of all FDA-approved drug targets are for GPCRs and ion channels. In a recent survey of top challenges in the field, difficult targets and the selection and screening required to identify leads against them accounted for nearly 80% of all responses. This means that antibody development pipelines had to adapt to meet this demand by embracing not only emerging technologies but also enhanced screening methodologies and higher workflow efficiencies.
What’s the BioXp system and how does it improve efficiencies across antibody discovery workflows?
The BioXp system is the world’s first fully automated synthetic biology workstation and provides a turnkey solution for generating gene fragments, clones, variant libraries, and mRNA starting from just a digital sequence. With all instrument builds taking less than 24 hours, the BioXp system enables numerous synthetic biology applications and is transforming workflows across antibody therapeutic development pipelines. The BioXp system enables researchers to build biology overnight.
Can you describe the BioXp workflow?
The BioXp system workflow is quite simple. First, you submit your digital sequences through our ordering portal. Next, you receive your BioXp kit, which will contain all the necessary consumables for your project. Then you load the instrument, which takes no more than a few minutes, and then finally press start. The BioXp system does the rest. Simply retrieve your products off the instrument and proceed to downstream experimentation.
Can you take me through the process of building and cloning DNA on the BioXp system?
The BioXp system constructs de novo synthesized DNA fragments up to a combined total of 7.2 KB in length and then clones them via Gibson assembly method into the linearized vector of your choice. Up to four unique fragments may be assembled into the final construct.
In particular, the two-fragment assembly cloning workflow provides an easy way to synthesize scFv fragments overnight by building VH and VL segments joined via a linker. If you would prefer to do your fragment cloning manually on the bench, up to 32 unique gene fragments can be built with each BioXp system run.
When compared to industry standard turnaround times for gene synthesis providers how much faster can the BioXp workflow enable time from sequence to transfection?
60-80% faster. Under ideal circumstances with synthesis providers, our customers have mentioned that they can receive the requested products within 2 weeks. Under typical circumstances, the turnaround times can take a month. With the BioXp system, this can be accomplished in less than one week.
How are Telesis Bio’s variant libraries designed for optimal results?
DNA synthesis time is independent of design complexity, constructs are built to specification (not as pools), every sequence is known from design, and there are no molecular biology constraints on protein engineering designs.
How has Cellibre been able to speed up its enzyme engineering process with these DNA libraries?
Cellibre is an agricultural biotech looking to address supply chain issues via bio-fermentation. They have partnered with our team to build multiple complex library designs for their enzyme evolution work. Not only were they able to engineer an enzyme with five times the activity of their starting one, but more importantly, they were able to drastically reduce the build-test cycle to weeks instead of months. Furthermore, they were able to rapidly synthesize complex designs that they were unable to obtain from other DNA synthesis providers.
Interested in learning more about how you can speed up and optimize your synthetic biology workflows? Visit our website to see how you can benefit from Telesis Bio’s synthetic biology solutions.