A $32 million contract from the Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) was awarded to “The Foundry” (http://web.mit.edu/foundry/), a DNA design and manufacturing facility at the Broad Institute of MIT to support the engineering of novel biological systems. Boston University Computer Engineering Associate Professor Douglas Densmore’s role in automating the facility’s design process with software inspired by electrical and computer engineering was key in establishing novel, large scale, parallel design processes that landed the contract.
