OpenBioMAPS: shared tools for accelerating UK bio-manufacturing

我们将开发一个开源工具的生态系统，以加速英国生物制造部门采用工程生物学能力。知识产权保护使生物企业能够自由经营，防止不公平竞争。然而，大多数工程生物系统需要许多“螺母和螺栓”的部分。初创企业和中小企业对于通过新的可持续制造流程推进英国的清洁增长目标至关重要，但与老牌企业相比，它们的准入有限，可能需要谈判一堆许可证。正如我们在OpenPlant研究中心所展示的那样，开放许可可以降低中小企业采用新创新的交易成本。我们现在将扩展我们以前的工作，开发用于植物和微生物工程的DNA工具包（openplant.org），用于材料共享的法律工具（OpenMTA.org），以及用于工程和生物学的培训（例如biomaker.org）。我们计划为英国生物制造公司开发(i)生物工程工具，包括微生物发酵和植物叶绿体生物生产的原型和商业化机会，（ii）为学者和行业科学家提供培训，以开发生物和工程界面的技能；iii)英国工程生物学社区的小型项目，以促进工具的进一步发展。总的来说，这将建立采用开源工具、原则和开发实践的能力。开源工具在计算领域无处不在，业界估计80-90%的新应用程序是由现有组件构建的，其中大部分是开源的。生物制造也可以从类似的可重复使用性中受益。我们的目标是建立一个加速英国生物制造企业的旗舰平台，并可能成为建立英国工程生物学开源项目办公室（OSPO）的跳板，模仿成功的科技行业OSPO。

We will develop an ecosystem of open source tools to accelerate adoption of engineering biology capabilities in the UK biomanufacturing sector. IP protection allows bioenterprises freedom to operate and prevent unfair competition. However, most engineered biosystems require many "nuts- and-bolts" parts. Start-ups and SMEs, who are critical to advance UK clean growth targets through novel sustainable manufacturing processes, have limited access compared to established companies and may need to negotiate a thicket of licences.Open licensing can reduce transaction costs in adoption of new innovations by SME's, as we demonstrated in the OpenPlant research centre. We will now expand our previous work developing DNA toolkits for plant and microbial engineering (openplant.org), legal tools for materials sharing (OpenMTA.org) and training for engineering and biology (e.g. biomaker.org). We plan to develop (i) biological engineering tools for UK bio-manufacturing companies including prototypes for microbial fermentation and plant chloroplast-based bioproduction and opportunities for commercialisation, (ii) training for academics and industry scientists to develop skills at the interface of biology and engineering; iii) mini-projects across the UK engineering biology community to promote further development of tools. Overall, this will build capacity for adoption of open source tools, principles and development practices.Open source tools are pervasive in computing, industry estimates suggest that 80-90% of new apps are built from existing components, mostly open source. Biomanufacturing could benefit from similar reusability. We aim to establish a flagship platform to accelerate the UK biomanufacturing enterprise, and a possible springboard for establishing an Open Source Program Office (OSPO) for UK engineering biology, mirroring successful tech industry OSPOs.