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Rapid DNA Prototyper

Affordable, easy to use DNA synthesizer in developement

CORK, Ireland, June 02, 2014: Austrian engineering company Briefcase Biotec received funding from SOSventures and is accepted into the prestigious new startup accelerator SynBio Axlr8r. From the end of april to september, the team supported by experts of Synbio Axlr8r will develop their product "KiloBaser", a rapid DNA prototyper. The program is based at the University College of Cork in Ireland.

The goal is to create a cost effective DNA Synthesizer, or rapid prototyper, which will enable startups and small companys to gain a foothold in the biotechnology market. A huge problem for biotechnology companies are the long delays associated with ordering DNA and their dependency on slow moving DNA synthesis companies. "KiloBaser“, which is based on magn1etic and microfluidic technology, aims to solve that problem by bringing DNA synthesis to the lab bench, where it is actually needed You can find out more at their website http://kilobaser.com/.

About Briefcase Biotec

Biotechnology has evolved beyond traditional institutions. It has become a global movement of innovative scientists, hackers, young entrepreneurs, start-ups and education centers, asking for new solutions to fulfill their specialized needs. Briefcase Biotec and their founders –who are also operating Austria's and Europe's first S1 OpenBioLab- are dedicated to that movement, willing to accompany their fellow researchers from their first steps on to biotechnology heaven. Designing lab equipment which is compact, desktop sized, fully automated & remote controlled, customizable, open source, requires little maintenanceand is still truly affordable . Designed and manufactured in Austria – Europe for the world of tomorrow.

Interview O'Reilly BioCoder

1. Who is on your team? What are your backgrounds? How did you meet?

   It all started about three years ago when I was sick of the lack of freedom at our university (I was studying molecular biology) and in the education system in general. I'd rather work on real projects than learn massive amounts of theory, so I decided to develop my own bioreactor. Two friends joined to complete our skillset: Bernhard Tittelbach, who is our hardware programmer & electronics engineer, and Martin Jost, a a software programmer and a classmate of mine in molecular biology. We were working at the local hardware hackerspace 'realraum' in Graz, Austria. There we came up with the idea to create a hackerspace, but for us biologists! So Martin and I founded 'Olga' (Open Biolab Graz Austria). Well we didn't know at the time that other biohackerspaces even existed. Our recent project at Synbio Axlr8r evolved out of our work at Olga on the bioreactor and after an enlightening meeting at Berlin with biohacker Rüdiger Trojok.

2. What is your axlr8r project, why are you doing it, and what’s the potential impact?

   Rapid DNA prototyper. Everyone who works in a lab probably knows what it means to have delays of days, weeks or even months waiting for your outsourced DNA service to synthesize the DNA you urgently need. We want to bring DNA synthesis back to the lab bench with our desktop synthesizer called 'Kilobaser', which will be easy, affordable and open-source. It is based on microfluidic and magnetic technology. It's also important for us to provide the DIYBio community with an independent way to produce their DNA, instead of relying on the good will of big companies.

3. Wildcard 1 - tell the readers something interesting and relevant that does not fit within the questions above.

   Even though it's a lot of work, we are having a great time here at Synbio Axlr8r in Ireland! It's amazing to meet all this teams from around the world, biohackers & entrepreneurs, who get things going in their very own way.

4. Wildcard 2 - tell the readers something interesting and relevant that does not fit within the questions above.

   When we came to Cork and Ireland for the Accelerator, we had been informed of no schedule, no address to go, no information about available tools, labspace or workshops and basically knew nothing apart from “just find a place to live for now. No problem”. After a day or two we finally got to meet the great people at SOSventures and got access to some deskspace.

   Establishing ourselves in Cork however, turned out to be a much larger problem than anticipated. As long as students were still having exams, it seemed as if there was absolutely no short-term housing to be had. After a week of searching we grew pretty desperate. It was a pretty hectic and frustrating start.

   In the end though, we lucked out. We found a small house that would we could rent short-term from May on, since the previous tenants ran it down in such a way that they had to be thrown out and the place partially refurbished. Basically the landlord was happy to find someone willing to take it and we moved in with the paint barely dry and moldy dirty dishes still in the cupboard.

   After some (read “lot's of”) work, everything turned out great, however. Team muufri moved in with us and jokingly coined the name “Castle Austria”, which stuck. We are now close to the lab, have a usable garden with a grill, host barbecues for the other teams and even managed to convert one of the rooms into a small workshop, so that we may actually do some hardware prototyping in Cork or just hack on throughout the night when the lab is closed.