from Hacker News

Ginkgo Bioworks (YC S14) raises $100M to buy a lot of synthetic DNA

by johnsocs on 6/8/16, 1:50 PM with 19 comments

• by jrkelly on 6/8/16, 6:36 PM

  I'm Jason Kelly, one of the Ginkgo co-founders -- happy to answer questions!

• by vpontis on 6/8/16, 8:43 PM

  > The startup announced in the spring of 2015 it would be buying 100 million base pairs of DNA to help it move into new production areas but has since upped that amount to the 600 million base pairs and will be partnering with Twist Bioscience and Gen9 to supply the synthetic DNA. Twist has pledged to deliver at least 400 of those base pairs of DNA by the end of 2017.

  That last line about Twist delivering 400 base pairs has to be wrong, right? Do they mean 400 million?

• by sndean on 6/8/16, 7:58 PM

  > works with DARPA to produce probiotics that will help U.S. soldiers stave off stomach bugs

  Will there be synthetic probiotics in the future? (I understand that some probiotics are already heavily engineered.)