I stumbled over the whole project a few days ago. So far I’ve studied the reclone website, the github and the protocols.io site. I would love to become an active participant in the research going on since we started to produce a lot of inhouse reagents/enzymes/etc. recently. The part I am still a bit confused about, is if it is possible to get a hand on the DNA collection. The reclone website consists of only non functional buttons, I initially found the enzyme collection from Free Genes, but the Free Genes projects seems to not exist anymore… In general I’m just a little bit confused on if its possible and how you can get any of the DNA collections. Thanks in advance for all help and any pointers!
Our apologies on the functionality of the website, we’re making some progress to doing updates so there are still a fair few broken links around.
Previously the collections were available through FreeGenes, but since that project went into hiatus, the Reclone community started taking stewardship of the collections. Most of the information about the collections from the FreeGenes project was mirrored onto the Reclone GitHub account over the last year or so (with minor updates), and up until early this year it was possible to request the collections from our website. However, we also had to take a brief hiatus in distribution ourselves as we work out a more sustainable long-term solution. We hope to be able to distribute again properly later this year.
I may be able to put you in contact with a few others from the FreeGenes bionet and the wider Reclone community who are more local to you who might be able to make a copy of the collections that you are interested in? I can get in contact with you directly about this.
I’m sorry this probably isn’t the news the you’re looking for, and we’ll keep the community updated as and when we have more to share.
If you have entered into the iGEM competition, the iGEM Distribution kit also has some of the DNA collections including the Open Enzyme Collection and Open Reporters Collection. The full 2025 Distribution platemap can be found here.
As for plasmid vectors, the following may be of interest also:
thanks for the quick reply and taking your time time write such a detailed answer! I’m sorry to hear about all the roadblocks the project has to seem run into in the last years. I’m very happy about any possibilities to get my hands on the collections.
I saw that the constructs are available on addgene, but the only option I saw there was to order them one by one (which would end up rather expensive).
Thanks about the info regarding iGEM, I’ll ask around in our institute if I’m not mistaken I think there might’ve been a group that entered into the iGEM competition.
Also thanks a lot for pointing me into the direction of more cool projects. I’ll try to dig a bit deeper into those aswell.
Hello! Eric from Addgene here. I wanted to note a few things:
If there is a good case that what’s deposited at Addgene already should be made into a kit, then the depositing institution can contact deposit@addgene.org to ask about this. Kits are expensive for us to make, but if there’s a demand for them, it significantly drops the per/plasmid price.
It can take a while to make a kit should we decide to make one. In the meantime, if cost is prohibiting you from requesting a group of plasmids, then please consider contacting help@addgene.org to see if you can get a discount on a large number of plasmids. As a nonprofit organization, we need to cover our costs, but we also want to make sure scientists get the reagents they need.
Finally, if the hiatus for distributing these continues, I hope @YKH and the Reclone folks will consider reaching out to Addgene for help with distribution. That would be another email to the deposit@addgene.org, though if you think something like this would warrant a different type of partnership, you can reach out to me directly (eric@addgene.org) and could put you in contact with the most appropriate people to have those conversations.
@Vanderpool - no worries at all, I’m glad we could help point you in a viable direction for your work, and it’ll be great to hear more about what your plans are for your work too at some point!
I’ll also shamelessly direct you to our upcoming Reclone Community Meeting next 2025-05-21T14:00:00Z (online via Zoom) if you’d like to meet and hear some interesting work done by our community members! More details in the forum chat linked below:
Making the collections that OBL have deposited onto Addgene into single-plate kits is actually something we’ve been recently discussing, but we hadn’t yet had the capacity to do so for deposit with you guys.
So if Addgene does think it would also be worth it to make it into a kit, we’d definitely be keen to ask for your help with this. It’ll certainly make it easier with distribution and for others to use it for sure!
I’ll send out an email to deposit@addgene.org shortly to see if we could get the ball rolling on it. Thanks again for raising this, Eric!
Thanks so much @eperkins and to everything that you are saying.
As @YKH says depositing with Addgene is our intention for all of the toolkits from Open Bioeconomy Lab that Addgene are willing to accept . In fact you’re even mentioned on two of our milestones for our OpenBioMAPS project!
I wrote this in 2023 and the grant started in 2024 but it hasn’t happened already because we got stuck reaching M1.1 - it turns out we had some plasmid contaminations that were unforeseen and are now resolved thanks to some meticulous sleuthing by @Aaron_Macauyag & @YKH. A perfect demonstration of why it makes total sense to have a distribution partner like Addgene, with robust QC already in place.
Thanks to @YKH for getting the ball rolling with an email to the suggested address! In fact I’m in Boston in July and would love to swing by, I’ll drop you an email!
My personal preference is that Reclone:
Uses Addgene as default global distribution partners where we can find a good trade-off of kits that are ordered enough to make it worth your while! And work in partnership to raise funds to subsidise distribution where affordability is an issue.
Supports Regional Hubs to manage regional distributions within their resource means, and especially when tied to meetings/workshops/trainings/collaborations within the Reclone network.
Supports local nodes to distribute as best they can to researchers in their vicinity, again especially tied to meetings/workshops/trainings/collaborations.
Bootstrapping distribution without adequate funding and person time is hard - as the several people who have had long waits to receive stuff from my lab will attest! I’m not sure we’ll ever reach a solution that works for everyone, but hoping that a combination of the above will help us get closer to the Reclone vision of:
Creating a future where all biologists have equitable access to the reagents and tools they need to discover, build and innovate with biology.
I greatly welcome other thoughts from the Reclone network - please chip in!
hello
i think one good option to consider in global south for regional hubs is plant genetic seed banks, most countries with low-income have a seed bank, and they are generally friendly and cooperative in my experience.
they have storage places with -20 or -80 c and equipment for microbiology labs and dna extraction validations etc.
i believe it worth a shot to consider them, and i would work on a global map with numbers for them if it is requested.
to everything that you are saying.
. In fact you’re even mentioned on two of our milestones for our OpenBioMAPS project!