Cambridge-based Gen9 has landed another $21 million to keep pushing the limits of synthetic biology, a cutting-edge field where scientists "play God" by creating customized DNA — the building blocks of life — for a variety of different industries.
As part of the deal, Agilent Technologies of Santa Clara, Calif., gained an equity stake in Gen9 and will join its board of directors as the Bay State startup uses the money to increase the scale of its operations and ultimately to make new products, Gen9 CEO Kevin Munnelly said.
"Gen9 was founded to significantly increase the world's capacity to cost-effectively generate high-quality DNA content for use in transforming industries ranging from chemical and enzyme production to agriculture, biofuels, pharmaceuticals and even data storage," Munnelly said. "Agilent's investment is a powerful validation of our proprietary BioFab platform, and we look forward to working closely with them to further innovate around our manufacturing capabilities and build Gen9 into the leading high-throughput supplier to the synthetic biology marketplace."
The investment will also help Gen9, whose early backers include New England Patriots owner The Kraft Group, to increase its 22-person staff by about 50 percent this year, he said.
The company's clients include large chemical, agricultural and pharmaceutical companies that are "starting to realize synthetic biology can reinvent the way they do business," Munnelly said. "You can actually design what you would like these gene products to do. … You can get very inexpensive genetic constructs on a massive scale."
That kind of power is a double-edged sword, which theoretically could be used to create weapons of mass destruction, he admitted.
Because the field is relatively new, Gen9 is left to "do a lot of self-policing," Munnelly said. "We don't supply people who are looking to do those things."
Agilent makes instruments for high-end measurement and testing, including testing of water for contaminants and of fruit for pesticide residue.
"We anticipate an explosion in the use of biological machines," said Neil Cook, vice president and director of Agilent Laboratories, referring to living organisms such as bacteria or yeast, which can be used to produce everything from medicines to car fuel.
"To make molecules at will is going to fundamentally change the way we see chemical synthesis in the future," he said.
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