Ipswich, MA and Boston, MA – April 3rd, 2009 -- New England Biolabs (NEB) and Ginkgo BioWorks (Ginkgo) announce the launch of the BioBrick™ Assembly Kit ideally suited to serve the needs of synthetic biologists, metabolic engineers and molecular biologists.

BioBricks are genetic components that have been standardized in their format to enable parts to be mixed and matched to build larger multi-part systems. BioBrick assembly is simpler and faster for multi-part cloning than conventional methods. It is simpler because the same process is used to assemble any two BioBrick parts. It is faster because it reduces the number of steps needed to assemble large multi-part systems. A system with 8 parts can be assembled in just 3 steps. Each year, hundreds of undergraduates with little prior lab experience perform BioBrick assembly as part of the international Genetically Engineered Machines competition (http://igem.org).

The BioBrick Assembly Kit is the first commercial product to support an open standard in synthetic biology. This standard is public domain and widely used by the synthetic biology community. For example, the Registry of Standard Biological Parts (http://partsregistry.org) maintains a collection of over 3,000 BioBrick parts built by researchers around the world.

The BioBrick Assembly Kit is available exclusively from NEB and provides the toolbox of reagents needed to assemble BioBrick standard DNA parts quickly and reliably. For more information visit (http://www.neb.com) or (http://ginkgobioworks.com).

BioBrick™ is a trademark of The BioBricks Foundation (http://biobricks.org)

About Ginkgo

Ginkgo BioWorks is a synthetic biology startup focused on making biology easier to engineer. Ginkgo offers kits and services to speed the assembly of DNA and to enable reliable, rapid prototyping of engineered biological systems. For more information about Ginkgo BioWorks, visit (http://ginkgobioworks.com).

About NEB

Established in the mid 1970’s, New England Biolabs, Inc. leads the industry in the discovery and production of enzymes for molecular biology applications and now offers the largest selection of recombinant and native enzymes for genome research. NEB continues to expand its product offerings into areas related to PCR, cloning, expression and purification, and is focusing on strengthening alliances that enable new technologies to reach key market sectors. New England Biolabs is a privately held company headquartered in Ipswich, MA and has extensive worldwide distribution through a network of exclusive distributors, agents and five subsidiaries located in Canada, China, Germany, Japan and the UK. For more information about New England Biolabs visit (http://www.neb.com)

About BBF