SBIR-STTR Award

This grant will seek the development of an automated DNA synthesizer that is orders of magnitude faster and more cost effective than current commercial DNA synthesizers while utilizing standard DNA chemistry. The goal is to automate the solvent delivery system for the Wafer DNA synthesis device and to eventually automate all aspects of the device. Once complete automation is achieved, the Wafer DNA synthesis device is expected to reduce the reagent cost per base addition from the current two to five dollars (0.2 umol scale of synthesis by conventional DNA synthesizers) to under fifty cents. The performance capability of one automated machine with its faster production time and lower cost of production should dramatically reduce the cost and time associated with sequencing projects, gene synthesis, protein engineering, DNA amplification, probe optimization and other genetic engineering research. With the need for hundreds of thousands to millions of polynucleotides for the Human Genome project alone, we believe the development of the semi-automated Wafer DNA synthesizer into a fully automated machine will have a major impact in the progress of DNA related research.Awardee's statement of the potential commercial applications of the research:The semi-automated Segmented Wafer DNA Synthesizer developed in this research allows fifty polynucleotides to be produced simultaneously with cycle times under ten minutes. It is believed that with further automation this instrument will be ideally suited to the oligo intensive applications proposed in the Human Genome Project.National Center for Human Genome Research (NCHGR)

This project relates to the automated simultaneous chemical synthesis of large numbers of high quality oligonucleotides at a total throughput greater than four bases per minute using beta-cyanoethyl phosphoramidite chemistry, and reagent usage at a fraction of conventional automated DNA synthesizers. One goal of this Phase II research is to fabricate a fully automated, multiple DNA synthesizer capable of producing 40 to 60 oligonucleotides simultaneously at 0.02 to 0.2 Irmol scale, reducing the reagent cost per base addition from the current $1.00 to $2.00 (0.2 pmol scale of synthesis by conventional DNA synthesizers) to under $0.50. The automated machine performance's, with its faster production time and lower cost of production, should dramatically reduce the costs and time associated with research projects requiring numerous oligonucleotides. Another Phase II objective is to produce a higher throughput, semi-automated instrument for the HGP, for example, oligonucleotide libraries, STS primer, repository and oligonucleotide arrays. The Phase II research is expected to stimulate further technology development in the HGP.Awardee's statement of the potential commercial applications of the research:It is anticipated that during Phase III, a fully automated segmented DNA synthesizer capable of producing 100 to 200 olios per day will be made available to the scientific community. It will do so at a considerable reagent cost savings over currently available instruments. Development of an automated DNA synthesizer that is orders of magnitude faster and more cost effective than current commercial DNA synthesizers, and that utilizes standard DNA chemistry should have a major impact in genome mapping and sequencing, as well as in other molecular biology efforts. In addition, the development of a machine capable of semi-automated synthesis of at least 300 oligonucleotides per work day would further reduce the cost of commercially supplied DNA and would serve as a resource for special HGP activities requiring very large numbers of oligonucleotides.National Center for Human Genome Research (NCHGR)