Developed at the Wyss Institute, the multiplex automated genome engineering (MAGE) technology harnesses the natural principles of evolution to do all the heavy lifting of genome design and automates these steps to dramatically shorten the time scale required to produce microbes with specialized functionalities for manufacturing, sensing and therapeutic applications.
Genome engineering has a wide range of applications, from developing new biofuels, chemicals and drugs, to better understanding the genes that cause harmful mutations in humans. But current techniques for synthesizing genomes are laborious and painstaking.
The Wyss Institute’s original MAGE device performed up to 50 different genome alterations at nearly the same time, producing combinatorial genomic diversity.
You can think of MAGE as an instrument of accelerated directed evolution.
The speed and ease with which MAGE can alter genomes is transforming how we approach the manufacturing and production optimization of industrially significant compounds in the bioenergy, pharmaceutical, agricultural, and chemical industries.
Biotech startup enEvolv licensed MAGE in 2013 to accelerate their genome engineering process by orders of magnitude.