Synthetic Biology and Personalized Medicine

Jain, K.K.

Also in May 2012, the UK's Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (http://www.epsrc.ac.uk) awarded a GBP 5 million (USD 7.9 million) five-year grant to a consortium of universities to develop a webbased synthetic biology information system called Syn-BIS that is currently in beta trials. SynBIS will host the software platform BioCAD and modeling tools, opening up the possibility of undertaking high-level software design of bioparts and devices. At the same time, the UK government plans to provide a boost to the nation's synthetic biology sector under a new initiative that will provide nearly GBP 6.5 million (USD 10.2 million) in research funding. Applicants for the funding also will be expected to consider any ethical, social and regulatory implications related to the use of their technologies.