Empowering genetic designers to build the future
“iGEM changed my life. Over the years, I went from an excited outsider, to an iGEM team member, to an advisor, to a judge, to a track organizer, and now to a sponsor. At Asimov, we want to give back and help grow this community.”
Asimov is helping genetic designers build the future. That’s why we’ve teamed up with iGEM once again, providing software and distribution kits to accelerate your work. This year, we’ve added some exciting resources for iGEM teams, including:
Kernel: Software for Genetic Design
As engineering fields mature – whether in aerospace, structural, or computer engineering – they gradually move from manual to computer-aided design tools. But in genetic engineering, this hasn’t happened yet; biology remains a laborious and manual discipline. At Asimov, we are building a computer-aided design platform for genetic design, called Kernel, that seamlessly integrates state-of-the-art synthetic biology and computational tools. All iGEM teams get free access to Kernel.
Kernel is a one-stop shop to design plasmids with ease, keep detailed lab notebooks, and collaborate as a team to create genetic designs.Kernel features:
a comprehensive collection of over 600,000 parts and plasmids, including the complete iGEM Registry of Biological Parts, the 2024 iGEM Distribution Kit plasmid collection, the mammalian parts collection, the AddGene plasmid repository, and an expanding collection of DNA, RNA, and protein parts.
a canvas for genetic design, where you can drag and drop parts to digitally build and visualize your plasmids.
a collaborative workspace where you and your teammates can design genetic constructs, write up notes, document your project, and describe experimental plans together
an electronic lab notebook where you can add in text, tables, links, and images to describe your project and document the experiments.
an AI tool that you can use to ask questions, find files, and explore genetic design recommendations.
A Biosecurity Sequence Scanner tool that you can use to check that the parts you’re working with are safe to use.
If you’ve not yet tried Kernel, or just want a refresher, you can learn more about how to use it in this tutorial.
The 2024 iGEM Distribution Kit
Asimov made the iGEM 2024 Distribution Kits, bringing in our best manufacturing practices, automation workflows, and high-quality control checkpoints to give teams access to high quality DNA parts and measurement calibrants. As part of our quality control process,
every plasmid in the Distribution Kit has been fully sequenced to verify accuracy, and has been DNA quantified and concentration normalized to ensure teams receive plenty of DNA for their projects.
We also manufactured this year’s measurement calibration kit, so teams can easily measure their genetic devices in plate readers.
Genetic Design Support
Understanding and implementing genetic design principles is a key part of iGEM. This year, we hosted a webinar – Mastering Genetic Design, a case study with Kernel – where we explored the cutting-edge techniques of genetic design with Asimov experts..
This webinar covers principles of designing genetic constructs, various strategies for assembling genetic sequences, and practical solutions for overcoming challenges in cloning. Our examples are drawn from the iGEM Distribution Kit, providing a practical and relevant context for your learning.
At Asimov, we believe that engineered biology will be the most important technology of the 21st century. Our mission “to radically advance humanity’s ability to design living systems” aligns perfectly with that of iGEM, which focuses on solving the world’s problems with synthetic biology. We are thrilled to once again be a Platinum Partner with iGEM, and look forward to the excitement and innovations brought by this year’s teams at the iGEM 2024 Grand Jamboree!
We invite you to connect with Asimov on the iGEM 2024 Global Slack in the #igem-partner-asimov channel.
Also, check out the iGEM 2023 Jamboree Keynote given by Asimov’s Co-Founder and CEO, Alec Nielsen.
