John Keells Research Signs an Historic Agreement with the Human Genetics Unit, Faculty of Medicine, University of Colombo to establish Sri Lanka’s first Synthetic Biology Research Programme

John Keells Research (JKR), the Research arm of Sri Lanka’s premier conglomerate, signed a multimillion rupee research partnership agreement with the Human Genetics Unit (HGU) of the Faculty of Medicine, University of Colombo on 5 May 2014 to establish Sri Lanka’s first Synthetic Biology research programme aimed at new product development. Synthetic biology is the design and construction of biological devices and systems for useful purposes. It is an area of biological research and technology that combines biology and engineering, thus often overlapping with bioengineering and biomedical engineering. It encompasses a variety of different approaches, methodologies, and disciplines with a focus on engineering biology and biotechnology.