Using our new point-to-point feature, this map is an example of how to follow the progress of innovation from grant funding through the labs to emerging startups in an emerging field, in this case Synthetic Biology. In 2006, the NSF funded the first synthetic biology engineering research center – Synberc – "to develop engineered biological systems that will catalyze new technologies for processing information, producing energy, manufacturing chemicals and pharmaceuticals and fabricating materials." Synberc is a consortium of UC Berkeley, UC San Francisco, Stanford, Harvard and MIT. In the VL map click the blue hexagon to see the callout which includes the direct link to Synberc or "Navigate To..." its map page.
We can see in the above map that the synthetic biology effort at UC Berkeley has blossomed into their own Synthetic Biology Institute, generously funded by Agilent and others. SBI's map is a hairball until we get some clustering going with papers and research topics!
You will see another connection path between Stanford and UC Berkeley in the map above. This connection shows the blue organization nodes for Gen9 and LS9, companies formed to translate synthetic biology research into gene synthesis and biofuels, respectively. Agilent recently invested in Gen9 and this looks like an excellent way for a large company to connect with a hub of experts and innovations in an agile, fast moving entrepreneurial firm.
Perhaps the Gen9 train has roared out of the station, but there are other ecosystems to explore where the cycle is repeating. For example, in 2008 the NSF funded four "Expeditions in Computing" to pursue far-reaching research agendas that promise significant advances in the computing frontier and great benefit to society. One of these expeditions, the Molecular Programming Project has led to an expanded expedition now called the Molecular Programming Architectures, Abstractions, Algorithms and Applications project. See this project's map below. This collaboration includes CalTech, University of Washington, Harvard, and UCSF. Using navigational search you can find that the Microsoft Bio Computing Group is also involved, can you find it? (Hint check the co-authors on the paper "Programmable Chemical Controllers made from DNA" :) The University of Washington has just established its own Center for Synthetic Biology (in March, 2013, map and links). It's just emerging, but given the ecosystem around the excellent UW Medical Center, this should be a great group to watch!
