Ginkgo Bioworks lands 4‑year, $47 M contract from PNNL for high-throughput phenotyping platform

Boston‑based biotechnology firm Ginkgo Bioworks (NYSE: DNA) announced on December 5, 2025 that it has been awarded a four‑year contract — worth up to USD 47 million — by Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) through its Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory (EMSL). Under the contract, Ginkgo will co‑design, build, and integrate a Modular High‑Throughput Automated Phenotyping Platform (HTP‑APP) to support the Microbial Molecular Phenotyping Capability (M2PC), a DOE‑backed effort aimed at advancing understanding of complex microbial and microbiome systems. The platform leverages Ginkgo’s modular “Reconfigurable Automation Carts” (RACs) and their Catalyst scheduling software to automate end‑to‑end lab workflows — from media preparation and microbial cultivation to sample processing and multimodal analytics (e.g., flow cytometry, imaging, plate readers, LC/GC‑MS). It supports BSL‑2 safety conditions, remote operation, and is built to be flexible and expandable. By automating phenotyping at large scale, the system is expected to dramatically boost throughput and reproducibility of experiments across diverse microbes and microbial communities. It will generate rich, multimodal data optimized for AI and machine‑learning analyses, enabling more predictive understanding of biological systems relevant to DOE’s mission in bioeconomy, environmental research, and national security. According to Ginkgo, the modular and software‑enabled design provides a sustainable foundation for future instrumentation upgrades and evolving workflows — keeping EMSL at the forefront of automated, AI‑enabled biology research. #GinkgoBioworks #PNNL #MicrobialPhenotyping #Bioeconomy #SlimScan #GrowthStocks #CANSLIM