Distributed Biological Foundries for Global Health

Historically, many industries such as manufacturing have undergone a trend away from centralized, large-scale production toward a more distributed form. Currently, this same trend is witnessed in biological manufacturing and bioprocessing, with the rise of biological foundries where one can synthesize, grow, isolate, and purify a broad range of biologics. The adoption of distributed practices for biological processing has significant implications for healthcare, diagnostics, and therapies. This essay discusses the many diverse factors that have facilitated this growth, ranging from the establishment of available biological components, or "parts," low-cost programmable hardware, and others. Currently existing examples of distributed biological foundries are also identified, separating the discussion into those that are accessible only by elite users and the more recent emerging foundries that are more accessible to the general population. Taking lessons from other fields, it is argued that this trend toward distributed biological manufacturing is inevitable, so adapting to this trend is important for the progress of creating new therapeutics, sensors, diagnostics, and reagents for biomedical applications.