Emergingby GlyphGenome language models design working bacteriophages
Arc Institute and Stanford researchers generated complete phage genomes; 16 designed phages were viable.
doi.org
Synthetic biology
Early commercialmomentum 245,825 papers a year (-14%)$1.1B raised in 12 months24 companies
Engineering living cells and DNA like a technology: writing genes, redesigning organisms and designing new proteins with AI.
Why early commercial: Generate Biomedicines, whose drug candidates are engineered with generative AI, went public on Nasdaq in a $400M IPO while running Phase 3 trials. Feb 26, 2026
Dots under a month: dated events tracked here that month.
Events
All 25 eventsDNA Script and GE HealthCare awarded up to $26M by ARPA-H
The FLASH program funds faster, distributed cell-free DNA manufacturing.
dnascript.com
Chai Discovery raises $400M at a $3.8B valuation
Investors include Index Ventures, Kleiner Perkins, Sequoia Capital and Dimension.
chaidiscovery.com
Profluent partners with Eli Lilly on AI-designed recombinases
The deal targets recombinases for genetic medicine.
profluent.bio
Generate Biomedicines prices $400M Nasdaq IPO
Shares priced at $16.00 and trade under the ticker GENB.
generatebiomedicines.com
Funding
Basecamp Research
Led by S32
$140MSource ↗
Chai Discovery
$400MSource ↗
Generate Biomedicines
$400MSource ↗
Chai Discovery
Led by General Catalyst, Oak HC/FT
$130MSource ↗
Isomorphic Labs
Led by Thrive Capital
$600MSource ↗
Latent Labs
Led by Radical Ventures, Sofinnova Partners
$50MSource ↗
Colossal Biosciences
Led by TWG Global
$200MSource ↗
Cradle
Led by IVP
$73MSource ↗
Constructive Bio
Led by Ahren, OMX Ventures
$58MSource ↗
Xaira Therapeutics
Led by ARCH Venture Partners, Foresite Capital
$1.0BSource ↗
Companies
All 24 companies
NVIDIA
Offers the BioNeMo platform for training and running biology foundation models.
nvidia.com
DNA Script
Makes the SYNTAX benchtop printer for enzymatic DNA synthesis.
dnascript.com
Chai Discovery
Builds foundation models such as Chai-2 for de novo antibody and molecule design.
chaidiscovery.com
Profluent
Uses protein language models to design gene editors such as the open-source OpenCRISPR-1.
profluent.bio
Generate Biomedicines
Designs protein and antibody drugs with generative AI; listed on Nasdaq as GENB.
generatebiomedicines.com
Google DeepMind
Developed AlphaFold 3 with Isomorphic Labs to predict structures of protein complexes.
deepmind.google
Researchers and labs
All 57 researchers and labsYi-Xiang Wang
Publishes on Synthetic biology at BGI Group (China): 28 papers in 2 years.
Yu‐Guo Zheng
Publishes on Synthetic biology at Zhejiang University of Technology: 54 papers in 2 years.
Guocheng Du
Publishes on Synthetic biology at Jiangnan University: 53 papers in 2 years.
Jingwen Zhou
Publishes on Synthetic biology at Jiangnan University: 52 papers in 2 years.
Agile BioFoundry
Consortium of seven DOE national labs operating a distributed biofoundry for biomanufacturing.
Arc Institute
Nonprofit research institute in Palo Alto that built the Evo 2 genome language model with NVIDIA.
Most cited papers
All 40 papersPatient-Specific In Vivo Gene Editing to Treat a Rare Genetic Disease
Kiran Musunuru, Sarah A. Grandinette, Xiao Wang et al. · New England Journal of Medicine
Split crRNA with CRISPR-Cas12a enabling highly sensitive and multiplexed detection of RNA and DNA
Yi-Chuan Chen, Xinping Wang, Junqi Zhang et al. · Nature Communications
Rapid in silico directed evolution by a protein language model with EVOLVEpro
Kaiyi Jiang, Zhaoqing Yan, Matteo Di Bernardo et al. · Science
Lung and liver editing by lipid nanoparticle delivery of a stable CRISPR–Cas9 ribonucleoprotein
Kai Chen, Hesong Han, Sheng Zhao et al. · Nature Biotechnology
Recent advances of CRISPR-based genome editing for enhancing staple crops
Feng Chen, Chen D. Lu, Yan Q. Zhao et al. · Frontiers in Plant Science
Patents
Bispecific SARS-CoV-2 antibodies and methods of use
Twist Bioscience Corp
Olefins and methods for making the same
Amyris Inc
Methods and compositions relating to covalently closed nucleic acids
Twist Bioscience Corp
Methods and compositions involving promoters derived from Yarrowia lipolytica
Ginkgo Bioworks Inc
Htp genomic engineering platform
Zymergen Inc
HTP genomic engineering platform
Zymergen Inc
About synthetic biology here
- Sub-areas
- DNA synthesisAI protein designGenome language modelsBiomanufacturingSynthetic genomicsCell engineering platformsBiosecurity screening
- Stage evidence
- Early commercial, Feb 26, 2026: Generate Biomedicines, whose drug candidates are engineered with generative AI, went public on Nasdaq in a $400M IPO while running Phase 3 trials. generatebiomedicines.com
- Momentum
- 24 of 100: the mean of its ranks among the tracked fields for paper growth (25), funding in 12 months (44) and events in 90 days (3). Method
- Papers
- 5,825 in the 12 months ending two months ago, -14% against the 12 before (OpenAlex topics, journal and conference papers).
- Tracked here since
- Sep 25, 2026
- Weekly snapshots
- 5 weeks stored; latest Nov 2, 2026. JSON
Changes to this field
Synthetic biology
Tracked from here on: Engineering living cells and DNA like a technology: writing genes, redesigning organisms and designing new proteins with AI.