Gingko Bioworks featured in Boston Globe life sciences industry spotlight

BLDC-funded Ginkgo Bioworks is planning to go public this year, with a valuation of $15 billion. The company was founded in 2008 by a group of MIT alumni and a professor, Tom Knight. They were interested in building tools to more effectively manipulate DNA. The goal was to insert custom-crafted DNA into living organisms such as yeast or bacteria, to effectively hot-wire them to produce fragrances, chemicals, or key ingredients for animal feed. More recently, biopharma companies, including Moderna, Roche, and Bayer, have come to Ginkgo for its DNA engineering expertise and advanced facilities. Ginkgo added 150 jobs last year — its workforce is now about 500 people — and the company will eventually trade on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol DNA. Ginkgo also will be one of the largest SPAC offerings — the acronym stands for “special purpose acquisition company” — that the life sciences sector has seen.