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20n/act: An open source platform for bioengineering

20n/act is the data aggregation and prediction system for bioengineering. For a target molecule, 20n/act predicts DNA insertions into cells (usually a microbe such as E. coli or S. cerevisiae) that modify the cell. These modified cells make the target molecule by fermentation from sugar. We call these "target molecules/chemicals" the bioreachables. The system predicted/invented the first bio-route to Acetaminophen/Tylenol/APAP. Read more on our blog post. The technical details of the APAP work can be found in patents applications on coli and yeast fermentation.

Getting started

Live preview

See predicted DNA for 11 sample molecules at Bioreachables Preview (Login:Pass = public:preview). Due to limitations we can only make a preview version available. If you'd like the full version please contact us.

Building the project

Checkout the repo. Follow instructions to run to create the database and prediction corpus. If you'd rather get a pre-packaged DB without creating it yourself please contact us. The codebase is public to further the state-of-the-art in automating biological engineering/synthetic biology. Some modules are specific to microbes, but most of the predictive stack deals with host-agnostic enzymatic biochemistry.

Components of 20n/act

Predictor stack

Answers "what DNA do I insert if I want to make my chemical?"

ModuleFunctionCode
1InstallerIntegrates heterogeneous raw dataCode:com.act.reachables.initdb
Run:Instructions
2Reaction operator (RO) inferenceMines rules of enzymatic catalysisCode:biointerpretation module
2Structure Activity Relationship (SAR) inferenceMines substrate specificitiesCode:biointerpretation module
3BiointerpretationMechanistic validation of enzymatic transforms (using ROs)Code:com.act.biointerpretation.BiointerpretationDriver
Run:Instructions
4Reachables computationExhaustively enumerates all biosynthesizable chemicalsCode:com.act.reachables.reachables
Code:com.act.reachables.postprocess_reachables
Run:Instructions
5Cascades computationExhaustively enumerates all enzymatic routes from metabolic natives to bioreachable targetCode:com.act.reachables.cascades
Run:Instructions
6DNA designerComputes protein & DNA design (coli specific) for each non-natural enzymatic pathCode:org.twentyn.proteintodna.ProteinToDNADriver
Run:Instructions
7Application minerMines chemical applications using web searches [Bing]Code:act.installer.bing.BingSearcher
Run:Instructions
8Enzymatic biochemistry NLPText -> Chemical tokens -> Biologically feasible reactions using ROsCode:act.shared.TextToRxns
Frontend:TextToRxnsUI
9Patent searchChemical -> PatentsCode:act.installer.reachablesexplorer.PatentFinder
Run:Instructions
10Bioreachables wikiAggregates reachables, cascades, use cases, protein and DNA designs into a user friendly wiki interfaceDocumentation

Analytics

Answers "Is my bio-engineered cell doing what I want it to?"

ModuleFunctionCode
1LCMS: Untargeted metabolomicsDeep-learnt signal processing to identify all chemical [side]effects of DNA engineering on cellCode:DeepLearningLcmsPeak
Code:com.act.lcms.UntargetedMetabolomics
2LCMS: Comparative visualizationVisualizing traces side-by-side from untargeted evaluation of over and underexpressed peaksDoc:LCMSDataVisualisation

Unit economics of bioproduction

Answers "Can I use bio-production to make this chemical at scale?"

ModuleFunctionCode
1Cost model: Manufacturing unit economics for large scale productionIt backcalculates cell efficiency (yield, titers, productivity) objectives based on given COGS ($ per ton) of target chemical. From cell efficiency objectives it guesstimates the R&D investment (money and time) and ROI expectationsCode:act.installer.bing.CostModel
Code (viz server):costModelUI
Source model:XLS

License and Contributing

Code licensed under the GNU General Public License v3.0. If an alternative license is desired, please contact 20n.

Original Authors