The BioBricks Foundation

The BioBricks Foundation (BBF) is a not-for-profit organization founded by engineers and scientists from MIT, Harvard, and UCSF with significant experience in both non-profit and commercial biotechnology research. BBF encourages the development and responsible use of technologies based on BioBrick™ standard DNA parts that encode basic biological functions.

Using BioBrick™ standard biological parts, a synthetic biologist or biological engineer can already, to some extent, program living organisms in the same way a computer scientist can program a computer. The DNA sequence information and other characteristics of BioBrick™ standard biological parts 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, and contribute BioBrick™ standard biological parts to the Registry. For example, in the summer of 2007, over 600 students and instructors at 60+ universities around the world are making, sharing, and using BioBrick™ standard biological parts as part of the International Genetically Engineered Machine (iGEM) competition.

The BBF supports an open technical standards setting process that is used to define BioBrick standard biological parts, and other technical matters relevant to synthetic biology research and applications. Feel free to join or contribute to the work of the BBF Technical Standards Working Group if you are interested.

The BBF also supports a Legal Working Group that is developing the BioBricks Legal scheme. Feel free to join or contribute to the BBF Legal Working Group if you are interested.

News

• Technical Standards, Legal, SB4.0, and Volunteer Mailing Lists are open, sign up today!
• Technical & Legal Standards Workshop 2, March 1, 2008, San Francisco, CA
• SB4.0, Fourth International Meeting on Synthetic Biology, 10-12 October 2008, HKUST, Hong Kong
• Technical & Legal Standards Workshop, November 5-6, 2007, Cambridge, MA
• Funding: Somekh Family Foundation makes generous donation
• Membership: Become a member of the BBF today!
• Volunteer: Help with the work of the BBF!
• Donate: Support the work of the BBF!
• Notes: Wiki notes about the BBF Standards discussions