IN THE basement of Imperial College sits the London DNA Foundry. The word “foundry” calls forth images of liquid metal being poured into moulds—of the early phase of the Industrial Revolution, in other words. This foundry is, however, determinedly modern. Liquid is indeed being moved around and poured. But it is in minuscule quantities, and it is not metal. Instead, it is an aqueous suspension of the genetic codes of life.

伦敦DNA铸造厂（London DNA Foundry）座落在帝国理工学院的地下室里。“铸造厂”一词会让人想起液态金属被倒入模具的场面，也就是工业革命早期的场景。然而，这座铸造厂毫无疑问是现代的。的确有液体被四处移动和灌注，但量极少，而且也不是金属，而是包含生命遗传密码的悬浊液。

The laboratory is an example of a wider movement. Similar biofoundries are being set up around the world, from the Broad Institute in Cambridge, Massachusetts, via Silicon Valley, to the National University of Singapore. All offer ways of centralising the donkey work of genetic-engineering research. Instead of biotechnology companies buying and operating their own laboratories, foundries will do it for them.

这个实验只是一场范围更为广泛的运动一角。从马萨诸塞州剑桥市的布罗德研究所（Broad Institute）到硅谷，再到新加坡国立大学，类似的生物铸造厂正在全球各地建立。所有这些实验室都集中从事基因工程研究中乏味而又繁重的工作。生物技术公司无须再购入和运营自己的实验室，生物铸造厂将为之代劳。

London DNA Foundry’s operations room is filled with boxy devices, each designed to do one particular operation, such as pipetting, repeatedly and quickly. A robotic arm shuttles small plastic dishes between the machines. Each dish contains up to 1,536 minuscule wells. And in each of those wells sits several microlitres of liquid and a few strands of DNA. Using this arrangement, the foundry can mix, in the precise concentrations required, 150,000 samples of DNA in a morning.

伦敦DNA铸造厂的操作室里放满了盒子状的设备，每台设备都是为了完成一项某个操作，例如移液，重复而迅速操作。一条机械臂在机器之间传送小塑料测试皿。每个测试皿内最多有1536个微孔，每个微孔内注有数微升的液体和多条DNA链。通过这种方式，该铸造厂可精确按所需浓度在一个早上配制15万个DNA样本。

The starting-point for the process is a library of what David McClymont, the foundry’s head of automation, calls “parts”. These are snippets of genetic code from which different genetic “circuits” can be assembled. A circuit, in biotech speak, is a collection of genes that work together towards a common goal—for example, generating a series of enzymes that convert one type of chemical into another. The genes comprising a potential circuit are then assembled into circular DNA molecules called plasmids.

这个流程的起点是一个库，存有该铸造厂自动化主管大卫·麦克利蒙（David McClymont）所说的“零件”。所谓“零件”其实是一些遗传密码片段，用于组装不同的遗传“回路”。在生物技术术语中，一个“回路"就是共同完成一个共同目标的一组基因，比如生成一系列酶，将某种化学物质转化为另一种化学物质。接下来，铸造厂会把有可能构成一组回路的基因组装成名为“质粒”的环状DNA分子。

To obtain appropriate plasmids the foundry’s customers may simply order parts from the library. They may also provide their own proprietary snippets. All the required parts are then transferred to bar-coded wells in the dishes and their contents mixed automatically. The whole process is controlled by a piece of computer code, provided by the customer, that describes the experiment.

要得到合适的质粒，铸造厂的客户可直接从“基因零件库”里订购，也可以提供自己的遗传密码片段。一切所需零件随后会被转移到测试皿中带条形码的微孔内，然后这些物质会自动混合。整个过程由客户提供的、描述该实验的计算机代码控制。

Once the mixture is correct, the test plates are whisked into a machine which multiplies the number of plasmids in each well using a process called a polymerase chain reaction (PCR). And then, when the PCR has done its work, the plasmids are introduced into living cells—either bacterial or yeast. After that, the cells are incubated, and the result is tested to see which, if any, of the circuits performs as expected.

得到了合乎要求的混合物后，测试板将放入一台机器中，通过聚合酶链式反应（PCR），令每个微孔中的质粒繁殖。完成PCR后，形成的质粒会导入活细胞——细菌或酵母。之后，铸造厂会培养这些细胞，并测试结果，确定是否有能按预期发挥作用的回路。

Such is the London DNA Foundry’s scale that it can build and test about 15,000 different genetic designs in a day. True to its name, the foundry is set up to build and test DNA plasmids only. Some other biofoundries, however, offer a wider range of services. For example Transcriptic, a firm in Silicon Valley, will also allow customers to store entire cell lines that may be tested later, or to grow tissues from them for testing.

这就是伦敦DNA铸造厂的规模，能在一天内铸造和测试1.5万个不同的设计基因。名副其实的是，伦敦DNA铸造厂只是用来打造和测试DNA粒子。不过，其他的一些生物铸造厂提供了更多的服务。例如，硅谷的Transcript能让消费者存储整个细胞系，以供后续检测，或是培养从中出组织用于检测。

编译：王锐

编辑：翻吧君

来源：经济学人（2018.03.03）