Built to do one thing well
A specialised biofoundry for glycan engineering, designed and developed within GlycoCell at the University of Nottingham.
What a biofoundry is
Design. Build. Test. Learn. Repeat.
A biofoundry uses automation, software and standard methods to design, build, test and learn from engineered cells in large numbers, far faster and more reproducibly than by hand.
Combining automation strategies
Rather than serving a broad range of applications, GlycoForge is built for one: glycan engineering. That focus lets us develop standard workflows, integrated, user-friendly software and streamlined laboratory processes designed specifically for the pathways that make glycans, so we can build and improve them faster and more reliably.
From pharmaceutical automation
Focused platforms that do one thing well, efficiently, reproducibly and at scale
From engineering biology
Making biology easier to engineer through standardisation, abstraction and automation
Why glycans suit this approach
A vast design space
Making a glycan often needs many genes working together, each switched on by just the right amount. That creates a very large number of possible designs, far too many to try one by one. Combinatorial DNA design and assembly, automation and high-throughput testing let us generate and search the possibilities, using what each round reveals to home in on designs that work.
Try it: possible designs · drag the sliders
An illustration. If each gene can be set to one of several expression levels (how strongly it is switched on), the number of possible designs is the number of levels multiplied by itself once for every gene: levels to the power of genes.
How GlycoForge manages complexity
Standard workflows
For designing, assembling, screening and analysing DNA constructs.
Bespoke software
Our software guides design and keeps track of every build.
Repeated rounds
Design-build-test-learn cycles for complex glycan pathways involving many genes.
Specialist roles
Technical specialists operate established GlycoForge processes, so researchers can focus on the science, design and analysis.
Status
Progress
- Facility and platform designed
- Laboratory set up and equipped
- Software platform co-developed by software engineers and engineering biologists
- Technical specialist in post
- Commissioning
- Running multiple GlycoCell projects in parallel