Synthetic Biology Standards Consortium (SBSC)

Summary

The Synthetic Biology Standards Consortium (SBSC) brings together private companies, academic researchers, and public entities to develop the metrology infrastructure to support a fully integrated, global synthetic biology enterprise, enabling coordination of labor and drive economic growth.

Description

The SBSC is an open and voluntary consortium consisting of private companies, academic researchers, and public entities convened and hosted by NIST. The objective of the SBSC is to collectively build the metrology infrastructure to support a fully integrated, global synthetic biology enterprise.

A robust metrology infrastructure for the field of synthetic biology will enable coordination of labor and reuse of materials, driving economic growth. Metrology products—standards, including reference materials; reference data; reference methods; and documentary standards—can enable business-to-business transactions at scale. The intent of the SBSC is to collectively establish infrastructure to support a fully integrated global synthetic biology enterprise.

The SBSC provides a forum for collaborative identification of technical standards through topical discussions. These discussions have given rise to cross-cutting teams focused on development of identified metrology products.

Note that the SBSC is currently inactive.

Major Accomplishments

The NIST-ABMS Workshop to Develop a Metrology Roadmap for Synthetic Biology was held at Imperial College, London, United Kingdom on July 12, 2013 immediately following the Sixth International Meeting on Synthetic Biology (SB6.0). The workshop report is available here.

The kickoff meeting for the Synthetic Biology Standards Consortium (SBSC) was held at the Stanford University Li Ka Shing Conference Center on March 31, 2015. The meeting was hosted by NIST and sponsored by the ABMS program at Stanford University. The workshop report is available here.