What is the Distribution 2.0?

iGEM is designing and building a new DNA distribution entirely from the ground up with support from the FreeGenes Project and the iGEM Engineering Committee. The focus of this and future distributions is in improving the quality of the parts and devices within, through curation and new interlaboratory studies run by the Engineering Committee. We hope these new changes will help iGEM teams push all facets of the design-build-test cycle for their projects further.

The new iGEM distribution will be manufactured and distributed by the FreeGenes Project, with all physical material provided under the BioBrick Foundation’s Unilateral OpenMTA. Anyone will be able to request and use the iGEM distribution!

This also marks the first time that iGEM is collaboratively designing the distribution. We’ve worked closely with the iGEM Engineering Committee on the contents of this year’s distribution. This has also led to collaborative building and testing of new software infrastructure to support this endeavor. All of the associated material within this distribution, from the contents to the software, is available through this GitHub repository!

Lastly, this new distribution has been organized as a continuous ongoing activity. Contributions to the distribution and synthesis of new collections will happen throughout the year. Along with this, we hope our vision for the new distribution along with its collaborative nature will idenify and address key areas of need for part collections, standards for communicating genetic designs, software, and more.