The BioBricks Foundation

Goals

The BioBricks Foundation (BBF) encourages the development and responsible use of technologies based on BioBricks, standard DNA parts that encode basic biological functions.

Using BioBricks, a synthetic biologist or biological engineer can already, to some extent, program living organisms in the same way that a computer scientist can program a computer. The DNA sequence information and other characteristics of BioBricks are made available to the public free of charge, currently via MIT’s Registry of Standard Biological Parts. Any individual or organization is welcome to design, improve, or contribute BioBricks to the Registry. For example, last summer over 150 students and instructors at 13 universities across the world made, shared, and used BioBricks as part of the International Genetically Engineered Machine (iGEM) competition.

The BBF’s goals are:

to develop and implement legal strategies to ensure that BioBricks remain freely available to the public;

to encourage the development of codes of standard practice for the use of BioBricks; and

to develop and provide educational and scientific materials to allow the public to use and improve existing BioBricks, and contribute new BioBricks.

News

• You can now sign up for the BBF mailing list at http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/bbf

• A community organization session is planned at the Synthetic Biology 2.0 conference. Hope to see you there!

About Us

The BBF is a not-for-profit organization organized in the State of Massachusetts.
The BBF was founded by engineers and scientists from MIT, Harvard, and UCSF with significant experience in
both non-profit and commercial biotechnology research. Current board members include:

• Drew Endy, MIT (President)
• Thomas Knight, MIT
• Randy Rettberg, MIT (Director, Registry of Standard Biological Parts)
• Pamela Silver, Harvard Medical School
• Christopher Voigt, UCSF
• Rebecca Ward, Harvard Medical School (Treasurer & Clerk)

You can e-mail the BBF at info@biobricks.org.

How You Can Help

• Website operation and improvement. The BBF is looking for a volunteer to improve the underpinnings of the BBF website, establish a few simple mailing lists, and take-on overall responsibility for making sure that the website is, over time, getting better. If you have the talent and time, and would like to help with this please email Drew Endy. We're hopeful that this is an important but small job once things are correctly configured.

Donations & Tax-Exempt Status

The BioBricks Foundation requested 501(c)3 tax-exempt status from the IRS on 1 December 2005.
If you would like to make a donation, please send a check payable to The BioBricks Foundation to:
The BioBricks Foundation c/o 24 Parsons St, Brighton, MA 02135

FAQ

Please click here for a "work-in-progress" FAQ.