Agilent synthesizes partnerships

In the last seven months, Agilent Technologies Inc. has entered into two major partnerships with newly formed academic institutes focused on synthetic biology. The company thinks synthetic biology is strategically important because it encompasses all three of Agilent's core business areas: electronic measurements, chemical analysis and life sciences. The collaborations give the company an opportunity to get in on the ground floor of an emerging field that is in need of faster and more precise technologies.

Synthetic biology can be broadly defined as the engineering of new biological systems that normally do not exist in nature. Biomedical applications can range from modifying biosynthetic pathways to create new drugs to engineering bacteria that seek out and kill tumors...