Living Foundries
Abstract
The goal of the Living Foundries program is to create a revolutionary, biologically-based manufacturing platform for the DoD and the Nation. With its ability to perform complex chemistries, be flexibly programmed through DNA code, scale, adapt to changing environments, and self-repair, biology represents one of the most powerful manufacturing platforms known. Living Foundries seeks to develop the foundational technological infrastructure to transform biology into an engineering practice, speeding the biological design-build-test-learn cycle and expanding the complexity of systems that can be engineered. Ultimately, Living Foundries aims to provide game-changing manufacturing paradigms for the DoD, enabling adaptable, on-demand production of critical and high-value molecules. Research thrusts will focus on the development and demonstration of open technology platforms to prove out capabilities for rapid (months vs. years) design and construction of new bio-production systems. The result will be an integrated, modular infrastructure across the areas of design, fabrication, debugging, analysis, optimization, and validation -- spanning the entire development life-cycle and enabling the ability to rapidly assess and improve designs. Key to success will be tight coupling of computational design, fabrication of systems, debugging using multiple characterization data types, analysis, and further development such that iterative design and experimentation will be accurate, efficient and controlled. Demonstration platforms will be challenged to build a variety of DoD-relevant, novel molecules with complex functionalities, such as synthesis of advanced, functional chemicals, materials precursors, and polymers (e.g., those tolerant of harsh environments). This program has basic research efforts funded in PE 0601101E, Project TRS-01.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Accomplishment
- Publication Date
- Oct 01, 2019
- Source ID
- 74ca2cbe3e01719d64fa00f41f556d97