Advanced Materials

Our synthetic biology platform allows our partners to access a large variety of chemistries and biochemistries critical to material formulations including fuels and lubricants, polymers, composites, textiles, and infrastructure materials.

Biomolecules developed using Ginkgo’s platform can serve as replacements for petrochemicals or provide chemical functionalities that are unique to biological systems, enabling the development of novel materials with never-before-seen properties. Whether your starting material is a metabolite, protein, lipid, carbohydrate, or whole cells, we can help build biological systems that produce what you need.

Biodetection & Biosurveillance

Globalization has enabled the rapid transmission of disease-causing agents, and the effects of climate change are unearthing and accelerating exposure to new pathogens for humans, animals, and plants alike. 

Through Ginkgo Biosecurity, we have responded to this challenge by building rapid testing networks for specific and non-specific pathogen detection, including hospital-relevant antibiotic-resistant strains. 

Government agency customers can leverage: 

• Our proprietary software to detect genetically engineered samples
  
  
• Our peptide, protein, or RNA-based biorecognition element design and testing capabilities for improving products including diagnostic tests
  
  
• Our biosynthetic pathways for signal generation and amplification for biosurveillance of hospitals, schools, farms, transport hubs, and government installations

Medical Countermeasures

COVID-19 highlighted our need for more immediate access to medicines and supplies for disease diagnosis, treatment, and prevention. The ability to respond to the pandemic was based on a foundation of government-funded research in counter-threat agent technologies.

Partner with Ginkgo to respond to biological threats by accessing our capabilities in optimizing and scaling up biological solutions including vaccines, antivirals, antimicrobials, and enzyme systems that degrade toxins to create deployable countermeasures.

Bioremediation, Biodegradation & Biomining

Biological systems have evolved naturally over billions of years to detoxify and degrade substances in the environment. The chemistries and functionalities of these systems are ripe for utilization and optimization for human needs.

Ginkgo is uniquely positioned to provide new solutions in bioremediation, biodegradation, and biomining of critical materials including rare earth elements through the characterization of naturally occurring organisms and microbial communities as well as through protein design and engineering. Ginkgo can partner with your agency to develop and implement high throughput screens to rapidly identify and prototype organisms, proteins, and processes that enhance bioremediation and biodegradation in the public interest.

Enabling the Circular Bioeconomy

At Ginkgo, we’re passionate about enabling the ability to generate renewable natural capital while minimizing waste and replacing petroleum-based products. Not only can government customers capitalize on our capabilities with regard to biodegradation, they can also leverage Ginkgo’s biosynthetic design and system characterization capabilities and tools to create solutions to the challenges of waste valorization, dewatering, and upcycling.

Enabling the circular bioeconomy will require connecting innovations from R&D projects, engaging the public and private sectors, and scaling technologies—Ginkgo is here to help.

Carbon Capture

Plant microbiome engineering can improve plant growth and drive more carbon fixation and sequestration. Ginkgo’s vast soil microbe database and greenhouse testbed facilities can be harnessed to better understand how microbial communities impact soil carbon content.

Ginkgo is also developing microbes that can use C1 compounds as their sole feedstocks, simultaneously utilizing CO₂ and methane, and reducing the carbon footprint of fermentation by avoiding high-impact feedstocks like dextrose and glucose.

Distributed Manufacturing

By leveraging distributed manufacturing and pairing it with our expertise in fermentation and strain engineering, Ginkgo can contribute to the development of technologies that strengthen local manufacturing while also helping reduce greenhouse gas emissions and address climate change.

Production of biologically derived products at smaller, more localized scales can help reduce transportation costs and emissions associated with the transport of bulk materials, as well as the energy consumption of large centralized facilities.

Ginkgo has engineered microbes to metabolize diverse feedstocks such as agricultural residues, transforming landfill-destined biomass into fuels and high value chemicals. Our expertise in designing strains for atypical fermentation environments allows us to develop microorganisms that can thrive in challenging environments including power plants and industrial facilities.

Microbiomes

Ginkgo can characterize microbial communities and engineer or evolve strains that play a role in important microbiomes. We have experimented with modulating parts of the human skin microbiome to consume attractant metabolites and produce repellents for disease-carrying insects and can help government customers explore microbiome-altering medicines or probiotics to improve gut, skin, and lung function.

Food & Nutrition

Flavorings, foods, and nutritive profiles that optimize nutrition and microbiome health and reduce climate impacts are increasingly important in building a sustainable and equitable future across the globe. This includes meals-ready-to-eat (MREs) that can be consumed by both deployed soldiers or astronauts and displaced persons. Ginkgo can help create healthier and more sustainable food products by rapidly prototyping and optimizing microorganisms to produce natural flavor compounds and other functional ingredients, such as protein alternatives or nutritional additives.

We can also help government agencies ensure the safety of their food supply chain by developing and optimizing tools for pathogen detection and surveillance. As a leader in the synthetic biology industry, Ginkgo’s expertise can be a resource for governments, helping to develop solutions to strengthen food safety, create more sustainable products, and create products made to weather challenging environments—from the battlefield to the space station.