About the Open DNA Collections Wishlist [RCN C002] category

Community Projects Open DNA Collections Wishlist [RCN C002]
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This category is for discussing updates to the Open DNA Collections. Help needed, everyone welcome!

As of Spring 2023, Reclone became the steward of the Open DNA Collections, which includes: the Open Enzyme Collection, the Open Reporter Collection, the Research in Diagnostics Collection (aka. the Molecular Diagnostics Toolkit), the Engineered RT-LAMP Enzymes, the E. coli Protein Expression Toolkit, and the Open Yeast Collection.

In Mar-2023, the Open Bioeconomy Lab received £20,000 to make updates to the Open DNA Collections.
We put out a call to the Reclone Community to see what other open enzymes or DNA parts that would be useful to improve these community-own reagents. This wishlist can be found here.

We are currently (Aug-2023) going through this list and prioritising which parts are off-patent/patent-less that can be shortlisted for synthesis.
Parts that have not been selected this round will be put on a backlog for synthesis in the future (funding-permitting)!

If you’d like to contribute to this project (including selecting parts, making parts open and compatible to be used in different assembly methods, etc.) - please let @YKH know!

Current volunteers working on this project include: @jenny_molloy, @osn_scott, @YKH.

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Hi,
Can I be part of this @YKH ? Will there be any certifications or reference be provided?

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Hi @khadeeja - I’m very sorry to have missed your message about this! And also welcome to the community! :slight_smile:

This project for adding new parts ended early last year, and we’re currently looking to restructure the Open DNA Collections to make it more accessible to the community.

Current efforts towards accessibility of the collections can be found in this thread (Availability of the DNA collections) as well as in finding out other ways to better design parts to include (What scripts are you using for DNA synthesis prep? (codons, domestication, syntax, RE cut sites)). Feel free to add your thoughts there!

We may look into adding more to collections in future (see Wishlist 2025) and can keep you in mind to support this effort if you are still available when we look into this.

As for certifications or references - we always welcome contributions from the community and would love that any volunteer efforts are properly acknowledged, so we’d be happy to provide references and/or certification in recognition of this. It’s on our list to have a better system to show what projects need support and to also set up a formal system for acknowledging volunteer contributions, but happy to discuss further if you’re interested in volunteering on a specific project.