DNA synthesis is the manufacturing backbone of synthetic biology. The ability to chemically construct custom DNA sequences from individual nucleotide building blocks means that any genetic design conceived in software can be physically produced and tested in living cells. This closes the loop between computational design and biological experimentation, making it possible to iterate on genetic designs with a speed that was unimaginable when researchers relied solely on cloning genes from natural organisms.
The DNA synthesis industry has experienced dramatic cost reductions — from roughly $10 per base pair in the early 2000s to under $0.10 per base pair today for standard gene synthesis. Twist Bioscience has been a key driver of this trend, using a silicon chip-based synthesis platform to produce thousands of genes in parallel. Integrated DNA Technologies (IDT), GenScript, and Eurofins Genomics are other major providers. Companies like Molecular Assemblies and DNA Script are developing enzymatic DNA synthesis methods that could further reduce costs and enable longer, more accurate sequences.
The falling cost and increasing speed of DNA synthesis have profound implications. As synthesis becomes cheap enough to build entire genomes, the boundary between "reading" biology (genomics) and "writing" biology (synthetic biology) continues to blur. Craig Venter's team demonstrated the first entirely synthetic bacterial genome in 2010, and Sc2.0, an international consortium, is building a fully synthetic yeast genome. Biosecurity screening of synthetic DNA orders is an important safeguard, ensuring that dangerous sequences are not inadvertently or maliciously produced. For deeper coverage, see SynBioIntel.