The large-scale integration project involving a number of academic institutes is being carried out in Novosibirsk. This project became the subject of the report "Technological Platform for Synthetic Biology", delivered at the meeting of the RAS SB Presidium in March 2012 by Alexander Sinyakov, Cand. Sc. (Chem.), Head of the Medical Chemistry Laboratory under the RAS SB Institute of Chemical Biology and Fundamental Medicine--he is responsible for an overall coordination and progress of the project. He spoke about new horizons opened up by gene synthesis, biomedical research, development of biotechnologies and design of a microchip DNA synthesizer. He told Yulia Alexandrova, journalist of the Science in Siberia newspaper, about the essence of these works. Today, a new interdisciplinary science--synthetic biology aimed to create artificial living systems based on the same genes--is being formed now. This science is developing on the basis of a revolutionary breakthrough in the sphere of gene synthesis. For this purpose microchip reactors are designed and constructed: they will simultaneously produce up to several hundred thousand oligonucleotides--relatively short (some dozens of DNA bases) DNA fragments. From them are collected fragments of genomes. What does the process of such synthesis represent? There are some computer-based DNA synthesizers operating at the Laboratory of the abovementioned institute. These instruments are controlled by a computer and "collect" oligonucleotides--specific "bricks" for gene engineering and molecular biology research. In particular, they are used to detect pathologies, mutations, pathogens. To fulfill all these tasks, manufacturing of oligonucleotide probe diagnostic chips was launched there. Artificial DNAs are synthesized on three said devices capable of producing up to 200-300 oligonucleotides of a different composition daily. But the science is rapidly developing and the need for them is also increasing ( ... Читать далее