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There’s a new core in town, the Center for Synthetic Biology (CSB) BioFoundry, and it recently opened its doors to Northwestern investigators and affiliated startups interested in scaling up and leveling-up their research. The facility offers state-of-the-art platforms and equipment that accelerate new discoveries and biotechnologies as well as hands-on guidance and assistance from foundry scientist Lauren Clark who set up the lab.

“The space can be a lot of things to a lot of people. Most labs don’t have the equipment we have in the foundry. We have liquid handling robots, a colony picker, and analytical equipment, including a mass photometer,” says Clark who earned her master’s in biology from the University of California, San Diego. “A lot of the expertise that we bring to the table is helping people begin working with the liquid handling equipment and increasing throughput in their research.”

The lab is also expecting a 10-liter bioreactor later this month that will enable large-scale fermentation to feed into the lab’s protein purification equipment and support the ability to make large lots of cell-free extracts for users.

Caroline Bond, a graduate student in the lab of Northwestern Professor Thomas Meade, regularly utilizes the BioFoundry’s protein purification equipment to speed the development of diagnostic MRI probes for bacterial meningitis.

“Right now, I’m doing my whole workflow over there with Lauren’s help. It’s been an invaluable resource. I can’t say enough good things about it,” says Bond.

The protein-specific work in Meade’s group involves bacterium that binds to human cells that are then able to cross the blood-brain barrier.  The lab’s research focuses on a particularly lethal form of meningitis bacterium found mostly in zero to 24-month-olds.  Bond’s work will facilitate invitro studies to test the efficacy of a new approach that could simultaneously diagnose and treat the infection early, before it becomes deadly.

“The relationship has been mutually beneficial,” says Bond. “As much as Lauren’s been helping me with research and troubleshooting, I’ve been able to help her create guides for other users and help to establish it in NUcore for sign-up and registrations.”

Before accepting her current position, Clark spent nearly a decade in the lab of former CSB faculty member and co-founder Michael Jewett developing new techniques at the interface of molecular biology and cell-free protein synthesis. Previously, she worked in a startup doing protein purification before returning to her alma-mater managing a lab that specialized in yeast genetics. Her experience and expertise are a key asset to facility users.

“Typically, when people want something from cells, they just grow the cells and then recover their product as best they can,” says Clark. “But what happens when that isn’t sufficient? There are a lot of different knobs you can turn and things you can change about the way that you’re growing your cells or the way you’re conducting your purification that might get you more of the desired protein or product.”

Clark works closely with Josh Leonard, (Chemical and Biological Engineering) the BioFoundry’s faculty leader whose expertise in mammalian synthetic biology, gene delivery vector engineering, and protein engineering adds to the foundry’s deep bench of service offerings.

“The BioFoundry offers a complementary suite of uniquely enabling cutting-edge capabilities that can take research on campus to the next level,” says Leonard. “These include advanced analytical capabilities that provide new insights and enable automation and multiplexing. We also make these services available to empower the broader biotech sector in Chicago, including Northwestern’s growing cohort of dynamic startups.”

The CSB BioFoundry is located at 1801 Maple Avenue in Evanston, IL. Click here to learn more about the core’s equipment, services and people.

by Lisa La Vallee

Main image: Lauren Clark, CSB BioFoundry Scientist