Collaboration to boost adoption of a new platform for the engineering of biological systems
Product design and development firm Cambridge Consultants is joining forces with innovative software company Synthace in an ambitious bid to unlock the full potential of biology to address many of the global challenges facing the world. The partnership is aimed at boosting adoption of a powerful new platform for the engineering of biological systems – a crucial step towards groundbreaking developments such as truly personalized ‘precision’ medicine and the next generation of antibiotics.
The new platform has been developed by UK-based Synthace and is a programming language and operating system for engineering biology. The Synthace platform allows more automated ways of working and opens the door to widespread adoption and implementation of engineering practices in the biotechnology industry. As well as medical breakthroughs, this could also unlock a whole host of novel applications in areas such as consumer products.
“We’re thrilled to be collaborating with Cambridge Consultants,” said Tim Fell, CEO of Synthace. “Our goal is to help remove some of the manual, and often painstaking, work that scientists undertake in experimentation – and use software and processes which can exponentially accelerate bioscience. Combining our expertise with that of Cambridge Consultants will hopefully speed up the adoption of the Synthace platform and demonstrate our commitment to making engineering biology a widespread reality.”
The partnership between the two companies will create a ‘one-stop shop’ for clients to ensure they get the most out of the Synthace platform. Cambridge Consultants will provide consultancy services to help with effective implementation of the Synthace platform in labs – including process development, protocol development, automation integration and custom equipment development. Synthace will provide the core ‘platform as a service’, maintaining it and managing the cloud-hosted infrastructure.
As part of the collaboration, Cambridge Consultants will use the Synthace platform to run its in-house synthetic biology lab. “We’re delighted to partner with Synthace and lead the global proliferation of synthetic biology together, while boosting the ever-growing UK scene,” said Richard Hammond, head of synthetic biology at Cambridge Consultants. “We’re also very excited to be using the Synthace platform in our own lab to plan and manage our wetware development and show the power of this approach.”
The Synthace software enables labs to define, link, and execute biological experimental and analysis protocols. Using the programming language, each in-lab process is fully and unambiguously defined and can be linked to other processes to form sophisticated workflows – including decision-based and recursive workflows. These systems can then be executed using automated equipment.
The UK is a strong player in the rapidly evolving synthetic biology community – leading in Europe and second only to the US globally.
Cambridge Consultants and Synthace are exhibiting at SynBioBeta London 2017, 4-6 April 2017 at Imperial College London.
Notes for editors
Synthace is exponentially improving productivity in bioscience with an operating system and platform that enables people to better engineer biology for health, food, energy and manufacturing. Central to its technology is a high-level programming language for biology, designed to make simple, reproducible and scalable workflows that are easily automated and shared. In 2016, the World Economic Forum included Synthace in its selection of the world’s 30 most promising Technology Pioneers that are helping shape the Fourth Industrial Revolution – a technological revolution that will fundamentally alter the way we live, work and relate to one another. For more information, visit: www.synthace.com
Cambridge Consultants develops breakthrough products, creates and licenses intellectual property, and provides business consultancy in technology-critical issues for clients worldwide. For more than 50 years, the company has been helping its clients turn business opportunities into commercial successes, whether they are launching first-to-market products, entering new markets or expanding existing markets through the introduction of new technologies. With a team of more than 700 staff, including engineers, scientists, mathematicians and designers, in offices in Cambridge (UK), Boston (USA) and Singapore, Cambridge Consultants offers solutions across a diverse range of industries including medical technology, industrial and consumer products, digital health, energy and wireless communications. For more information, visit: www.CambridgeConsultants.com
Cambridge Consultants is part of Altran, a global leader in engineering and R&D services which offers its clients a new way to innovate. Altran works alongside its clients on every link in the value chain of their project, from conception to industrialization. In 2016, the Altran group generated revenues of €2.120bn. With a headcount of more than 30,000 employees, Altran is present in more than 20 countries. For more information, visit: www.altran.com
