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. 2023 Jan 23;7(3):144–161. doi: 10.1038/s41570-022-00456-9

Fig. 1. The state of the art in DNA synthesis.

Fig. 1

a, Productivity of DNA reading and DNA writing (synthesis) estimated in the number of nucleotides per person per day15. The grey arrow denotes the current gap in productivity between reading DNA and writing DNA. The dashed oval outline highlights the time frame within which the DNA synthesis industry achieved the majority of important milestones to close the gap. DNA synthesis data (red line) are available only for column-based synthesis instruments. The number of transistors per chip (Moore’s law) is shown for comparison. The graph uses the data available in the literature. b, Timeline of milestones in DNA synthesis technologies discussed in the report20,25,26,34,35,37,42,71,146. For simplicity not all milestones are shown. NTP, nucleoside 5ʹ-triphosphate; PCA, polymerase cycling assembly; TdT, terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase; TiEOS, template-independent enzymatic oligonucleotide synthesis. Copyright Wiley-VCH GmbH. Reproduced with permission from ref. 15.