Ginkgo Bioworks | 1-3 Anchor Way | Seaport

Equilibria

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I refuse to call it "Au Bon Pain Way", especially when they aren't even there anymore. The speculative orgy of life science development is going crash at some point, right? It just has to.

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Scientists can now sequence an entire genome overnight.
This technology has been the key tool in identifying and tracking Covid variants.
Unlocking the Covid Code
,,,,,,
Historians of science sometimes talk about new paradigms, or new modes of thought, that change our collective thinking about what is true or possible. But paradigms often evolve not just when new ideas displace existing ones, but when new tools allow us to do things — or to see things — that would have been impossible to consider earlier. The advent of commercial genome sequencing has recently, and credibly, been compared to the invention of the microscope, a claim that led me to wonder whether this new, still relatively obscure technology, humming away in well-equipped labs around the world, would prove to be the most important innovation of the 21st century. Already, in Church’s estimation, “sequencing is 10 million times cheaper and 100,000 times higher quality than it was just a few years ago.” If a new technological paradigm is arriving, bringing with it a future in which we constantly monitor the genetics of our bodies and everything around us, these sequencers — easy, quick, ubiquitous — are the machines taking us into that realm.

And unexpectedly, Covid-19 has proved to be the catalyst. ....
.....

Last summer, a few big clinical laboratories, notably Ginkgo Bioworks in Boston, began plans to roll out tests for Illumina sequencers, pending authorization from the F.D.A. Ginkgo, with help from investments from Illumina, as well as a grant from the N.I.H., began building a huge new laboratory next to its current one, where the company would install 10 NovaSeqs. “After we get the big facility built, that’s when we’d be trying to hit 100,000 tests a day,” Jason Kelly, Ginkgo’s chief executive, told me at the time. It was technically possible to sequence many of the positive coronavirus samples, too, he said.

When I asked Kelly what he would do if his capacity goes unused, he didn’t seem concerned. He doubted his sequencers would be idle. “By betting on sequencers as our Covid response,” he remarked, “we get flexibility for what you can use this for later.” After the pandemic, in other words, there will still be new strains of flu and other viruses to code. There will be a backlog of sequencing work for cancer and prenatal health and rare genetic diseases. There will be an ongoing surveillance effort for SARS-CoV-2 variants. An even bigger job, moreover, involves a continuing project to sequence untold strains of microbes, a project that Ginkgo has been involved with in search of new pharmaceuticals. “I think of this as like building fiber in the late 1990s, for the internet,” Kelly said. “Back then, we laid down huge amounts of fiber, then everything crashed.”

But it turned out that a decade after the dot-com crash, optical fiber was essential for the expanding traffic of the web. And what Kelly seemed to be saying, I later realized, was that he would expand his lab because sequencing had to be the future, in all kinds of different ways. There was no going back.
 
We already have a yellow and orange version of this building in Kendall.

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Except this particular one's not speculative. Tenant already in place:



Exactly. There's nothing "speculative" about this one. Gingko Bioworks has 200K sq feet across the way in the IDB, is KEEPING that and is expanding the additional 200K sq feet in this building. My money is on "'this is the first step in several add ons".
 
That's one heavy looking mech penthouse.

Agreed, except it's nowhere close the atrocity DZ cites in his example upthread.
Nonetheless, given Boston's future of tons of lab buildings coming online, I do believe it's important to push developers to do better with these monstrous mech. penthouses. We've seen recent examples (such as this) demonstrating that it is possible to more gracefully integrate them into the facade scheme.
 
I thought most new development in the Marine Industrial Park had to support industrial marine uses? Anyone know how they keep getting around that (I'm not complaining, I'm just curious)?
 
The uHub article notes that these buildings were already considered non-marine, so there is no loss of space available for marine use. Also that maintaining access for the drydock remains a requirement.
 
Have we discussed why Massport and the city have not buried the utility lines underground? It's embarrassing. When you have the telephone poles sagging in front of brand new lab buildings, it just looks lousy. Anyone know if there are plans for this?
 
Have we discussed why Massport and the city have not buried the utility lines underground? It's embarrassing. When you have the telephone poles sagging in front of brand new lab buildings, it just looks lousy. Anyone know if there are plans for this?

Good timing Sidewalks! By coincidence, work to put the overhead utilities (at least in front of Parcel O) underground starts this week.
 

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