Riffyn and Imperial College Partner to Build Digital Foundations to Accelerate Synthetic Biology Research

An open-science collaboration between Riffyn, Imperial College’s Centre for Synthetic Biology (IC-CSynB), and SynbiCITE’s London Biofoundry sets the standard for a digital backbone for synthetic biology research and education in scientific reproducibility.

OAKLAND, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Riffyn Inc. and Imperial College today announce a public/private partnership to bring Riffyn’s process data system, Riffyn Nexus, to the public synthetic biology research community in the UK. The multi-group collaboration will establish process-driven research methodologies at IC through doctoral education and by equipping IC biofabrication facilities with a digital backbone for laboratory automation and data analytics.

“Most academics are not equipped with the means to implement industrially proven data systems, but now that this capability has been offered openly to our Imperial colleagues, we have the capacity to truly increase the repeatability and translational capacity of our synthetic biology research,” said Paul Freemont, IC professor and co-founder and director of SynbiCITE.

Riffyn’s cloud-based software, Riffyn Nexus, has been adopted by multiple global industrial biotechnology, pharmaceutical, and chemical companies, including Novozymes and BASF. The partnership with Imperial College will allow Riffyn Nexus to be utilized on a large scale in an open academic setting.

“Riffyn’s technology has helped double the pace of R&D for industrial customers. We are thrilled to partner with Imperial to bring the same outcomes of speed, fidelity and data reusability to the non-profit scientific community,” said Dr. Timothy Gardner, Founder/CEO of Riffyn. In a timely test-case scenario, Freemont’s graduate student Michael Crone used Riffyn Nexus to develop and validate a COVID-19 diagnostic assay in 9 weeks.

IC-CSynB research groups will work closely with Riffyn to test and develop Riffyn Nexus for academic research use cases, and Riffyn Nexus will be implemented across the London Biofoundry SynBio stack. A new Centre of Excellence will support the training, use, and integration of Riffyn Nexus across IC research labs, and an ongoing educational program will train doctorate-level students to become expert users.

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“This partnership is helping us increase reproducibility and quality control in the lab, while maintaining the flexibility required for fast-paced academic research. Through this, we are witnessing an exciting paradigm shift and new way of working at IC-CSynB,” said Guy-Bart Stan, co-director of IC-CSynB and head of the Control Engineering Synthetic Biology group at IC.

About Riffyn:

Riffyn’s mission to make scientific R&D work better. Riffyn Nexus provides process design, global real-time collaboration, and integrated data that’s always ready for machine learning. For more information visit www.riffyn.com

About the Imperial College Centre for Synthetic Biology:

IC-CSynB research areas include computational modelling and machine learning approaches, automated platform development, and genetic circuit and biological engineering. For more information visit: www.imperial.ac.uk/synthetic-biology/centre/

About the London Biofoundry: The London Biofoundry provides a suite of state-of-the-art robotic equipment supplying automated end-to-end design, construction, and validation of large gene constructs. For more information visit www.londonbiofoundry.org

Contacts

Stephanie Yeung

[email protected]