Hacking microbes
Biology is the world’s greatest manufacturing platform, according to MIT spinout Ginkgo Bioworks. The synthetic-biology startup is re-engineering yeast to act as tiny organic “factories” that produce chemicals for the flavor, fragrance, and food industries, with aims of making products more quickly, cheaply, and efficiently than traditional methods. “We see biology as a transformative technology,” says Ginkgo co-founder Reshma Shetty PhD ’08, who co-invented the technology at MIT. “It is the most powerful and sophisticated manufacturing platform on the planet, able to self-assemble incredible structures at a scale that is far out of reach of the most cutting-edge human technology.” Similar to how beer is brewed — where yeast eats sugars and creates alcohol and flavors through fermentation — Ginkgo’s “hacked” yeast eats fatty acids and produces desired chemicals that recreate certain scents and flavors during fermentation. Those chemicals can then be extracted and used in a number of different products. Co-founded in 2008 by...