CAMS Key Laboratory of Synthetic Biology for Drug Innovation was established in 2018. It is established in the framework of CAMS to further construct a new scientific innovation platform, to build a collaborative innovation network, and to play a core supporting and leading role in China’s medical science and technology innovation system. The present director of the key laboratory is Research Professor Bin Hong. The key laboratory is dedicated to applying synthetic biology techniques for drug discovery and development. The key laboratory is building a synthetic biology platform and applying it through different stages of drug discovery and development, to break through the research bottlenecks, to explore new structural compounds, to achieve high yield of target compounds, and finally to accelerate the drug development process, especially for those with urgent needs, such as drugs treating infectious diseases (emerging viral diseases, antibiotic resistance, etc.), tumors, cardiovascular diseases, etc.

The key laboratory is supervised by laboratory director and managed by project investigators. After more than two years since its foundation, it has developed into five independent research groups, with young and middle-aged researchers as the main research strength, and more than 80% of them have doctoral degrees. Guided by scientific research tasks, all research groups work jointly to tackle key scientific challenges in the construction of drug synthetic biology technology platform and in new drug research and development.

Since the establishment of the key laboratory, more than 10 new research projects have been funded, with a total funding of more than 10 million yuan. More than 30 research papers have been published and 14 invention patents were applied with 3 of them authorized. Carrimycin, developed within the synthetic biology framework, got approved as a national Class I new drug in China in 2019.