Ginkgo Bioworks, a company that designs custom microbes for customers, and Transcriptic, a robotic cloud laboratory platform, have been awarded a joint $9.5 million contract as part of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Synergistic Discovery and Design Program (SD2).

The SD2 program is managed by DARPA’s Information Innovation Office (I2O). As part of the program, Ginkgo and Transcriptic will use machine learning, closed loop biology, and automated execution of protocols for biological experimentation and iterative testing for synthetic biology, said the companies in a statement.

Ginkgo’s foundry generates terabytes of biological data, including genome sequences and transcriptomic, metabolomic, and proteomic data. This data will be analyzed using advanced artificial intelligence to design experiments performed on Transcriptic’s cloud lab, according to the companies.

[Image courtesy: Gingko Bioworks]