Ginkgo Strain Optimization Services

Overview

Optimize your strain’s performance and stability for any application

Whether you’re looking to increase your titers, improve your strain’s robustness in harsh industrial conditions, or evolve your strain to grow on more cost-effective inputs, Ginkgo’s best-in-class strain optimization services can help deliver on your goals.

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Diverse Strain Optimization Capabilities.
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From computational tools to in-house DNA design and sequencing services to ultra high throughput screening methods, Ginkgo’s capabilities enable the optimization of strains for diverse applications.

Access Ginkgo’s wide range of strain improvement techniques — from random mutagenesis and adaptive laboratory evolution to rational design approaches — to achieve your key performance metrics. Work with Ginkgo today to engineer a strain that meets your technical specifications, regulatory constraints, and R&D timeline, all while increasing your probability of success.

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How can we help you?

Proprietary Biological Assets & Data

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Proprietary Biological Assets & Data

  • Access our immense biological codebase of strains, enzymes, genetic programs, data, and knowledge accrued from every experiment we’ve run to-date

  • Accelerate your timeline to find an optimized strain by leveraging our data and biological assets

Strain Evolution & Screening

Strain Evolution & Screening

  • Engineer your strain to perform under harsh processing, storage, or end-use environments

  • Utilize Ginkgo’s automated adaptive laboratory evolution (ALE) instruments to improve genetically modified microbes by adapting your strains to industrially-relevant conditions with results in as little as a few months

Ultra High Throughput Encapsulated Screening

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Ultra High Throughput Encapsulated Screening

  • To unlock the full potential of massive combinatorial libraries and libraries generated through random mutagenesis, you need screening capacity to match 

  • Search through up to 1 million strain variants in a single run using our ultra high throughput screening platform built on nanoliter encapsulation technology, which provides nanoscale growth and assay compartments 

  • Screen diverse organisms including bacteria, yeast, filamentous species, and mammalian cells — whatever’s best for your application

  • Utilize this ultra high throughput to reduce the screening time for large libraries and increase the probability of finding a hit within commercially-competitive timelines

Strain Characterization & Analytics

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Strain Characterization & Analytics

  • Leverage our team’s capabilities to develop qualitative and quantitative assays to measure a wide range of phenotypic and biochemical results at scale

  • Access Ginkgo’s platform and our automation-first mentality to screen multiple metabolites from each sample in parallel

Strain Onboarding & Tech Transfer

Strain Onboarding & Tech Transfer

  • Leverage our expertise in a range of industrial microbes—including Escherichia coli, Bacillus subtilis, Pichia pastoris, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, Aspergillus niger, Corynebacterium glutamicum, and Yarrowia lipolytica—and many more model and nonmodel host organisms

  • Ask us about onboarding new species to our platform and our experience developing tools around them
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Markets We Serve

Featured Projects & News

Ginkgo is your end-to-end synthetic biology R&D partner. Browse a selection of our partner projects and case studies to explore how biology is being used across industries.

Speak to our team today to access more.

Agriculture

Crop protection and nutrition, animal health and wellness, carbon solutions: we’re here to help. Explore our projects and learn more about how we help our partners in the agricultural sector.

Agriculture

Strain Improvement for Sustainable Agriculture with Bayer

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Ginkgo Expands Agricultural Biologicals Division, Closes Deal with Bayer

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Two gloved hands holding the top and bottom of a petrid dish, one side filled with agar with hundreds of small colonies growing

Expanding Our Platform Capabilities in Agricultural Biologicals and Launching Flagship Partnership with Bayer

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Optimizing Enzyme Expression and Performance with Zymtronix

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Optimizing the Brightness of Glowing Plants with Light Bio

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Biopharmaceutical

Use our synthetic biology platform to discover, optimize, and scale up a wide range of therapeutic modalities. Explore our projects and learn more about how we help our partners in the biopharmaceutical sector.

Biopharmaceutical

Optimizing Crucial Drug Manufacturing of APIs with Merck

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Colorful yeast in plate

Unlocking the Potential of Expression Systems for Medicines with Novo Nordisk

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Improving the Specificity and Activity of a Biocatalyst

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Enzyme Discovery Powered by Large Metagenomic Libraries

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High Throughput Screening for Designing Novel CAR-T Cell Therapies

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Manufacturing Breakthrough for mRNA Raw Materials with Aldevron

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Advancing Treatments for Orphan and Rare Diseases with Selecta Biosciences

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Developing Next-Generation Gene Therapy Capsids with Selecta Biosciences

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Improving the Manufacture of Biosynthetic Heparin with Optimvia

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Investigational Synthetic Biotic Medicine for Homocystinuria with Synlogic

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Optimizing Enzyme Expression and Performance with Zymtronix

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Developing Circular RNA-based Therapeutics with Esperovax

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Engineering Bacteria for Cancer Patient Treatment with Prokarium

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New Platform Ventures: Launching Verb Biotics, Ayana Bio

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Accelerating Production of Essential Medicines with Antheia

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Developing High-Efficacy Adjuvants for Vaccines with SaponiQx

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A very fine illustration in green of an X-rayed T. rex with a bundle of E. coli in an inset circle and the word Sue written in cursive overlayed on top of everything

Developing Synthetic Biotics for Gout with Synlogic

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Digital collage of live bacterial biotherapeutics

Discovering Novel Live Biotherapeutics with Microba

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Engineering Living Biotherapeutics for Gastrointestinal Health with Tantu

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Needle in a Haystack: Looking for Compounds to Treat COVID-19

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Supporting COVID-19 mRNA Vaccine Development with Moderna

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Teaming Up to Improve Antibody Therapeutics for COVID-19

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A New Modality of Medicine: Nucleic Acid Vaccines

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Governments

Secure the things you care about the most — your people, your environment, your home. Explore our projects and learn more about how we help our partners in the public sector.

Governments

Building a Global Bioradar System with Concentric by Ginkgo

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Manufacturing Breakthrough for mRNA Raw Materials with Aldevron

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Tracking Pathogen Variants with Rwanda Biomedical Centre

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Supporting COVID-19 mRNA Vaccine Development with Moderna

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Expanding Ginkgo’s Platform for Biosecurity and Pandemic Responsiveness

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Accelerating Industrial Adoption of High-Performance Biomaterials with Cambium

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Developing Water Quality Biosensors with FREDSense

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Concentric by Ginkgo: COVID-19 testing at scale

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Industrials

Chemicals, materials, fuels, waste, mining, water treatment: biology is revolutionizing industrial processes. Explore our projects and learn more about how we help our partners in the industrial sectors.

Industrials

Aliquots

Optimizing Production of Biobased Speciality Chemicals with Lygos

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Accelerating Industrial Adoption of High-Performance Biomaterials with Cambium

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Biobased Alternatives to Synthetic Polymers with Bioweg

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Improving the Specificity and Activity of a Biocatalyst

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Sustainable Beauty and Personal Care Products with Sumitomo Chemical

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Developing Water Quality Biosensors with FREDSense

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Genes × Jeans: Accelerating Production of Sustainable Dyes with Huue

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Metabolic Engineering for Lower Cost Feedstocks

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Commercializing Cultured Ingredients with Robertet

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Ultra High Throughput Genome Engineering for the Production of Specialty Chemicals

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Nutrition & Wellness

Improve proteins and enzymes, fats and oils, flavors and fragrances, and so much more with synthetic biology. Explore our projects and learn more about how we help our partners in the nutrition and wellness sector.

Nutrition & Wellness

Celebrating Cronos Group’s First-of-a-Kind CBC Product

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Sustainable Beauty and Personal Care Products with Sumitomo Chemical

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Producing Rare, Natural Ingredients with Givaudan

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Scaled Production of Cultured CBG with Cronos Group

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Optimizing Enzyme Expression and Performance with Zymtronix

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Scaling Production of Cultured THCV with Cronos Group

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Optimizing Silk Protein Production with Bolt Threads

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Improving Production Efficiency for Vibrant Food Colors with Phytolon

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Metabolic Engineering for Lower Cost Feedstocks

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Launching Commercial Production of Cultured Cannabinoids with Cronos

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New Platform Ventures: Launching Verb Biotics, Ayana Bio

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Commercializing Cultured Ingredients with Robertet

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Frequently Asked Questions

Not seeing what you need? Contact us with your question, and we’ll get back to you.

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What organisms do you work with?

Ginkgo has expertise in a range of model and nonmodel host organisms. We have robust engineering tools and have developed our own chassis strains for the following in particular: Pichia pastoris, Aspergillus niger, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, Escherichia coli, Yarrowia lipolytica, Bacillus subtilis.

Our team has also developed tools for engineering Corynebacterium glutamicum as well as various species of Paenibacillus. Our random mutagenesis and encapsulation and screening capabilities have been demonstrated on a broader range of bacterial, fungal, yeast, and mammalian cells. Ask us about onboarding new species to our platform and our experience developing tools around them.

How long does it take for Ginkgo to improve a strain’s performance?

This depends on the starting strain’s performance, the target performance, and your regulatory and timeline constraints. Our scientists will determine the best approach to improving the strain based on these factors. Mutagenesis and adaptive laboratory evolution techniques can deliver significantly improved strains in under a year in some cases.