DNA synthesis

Short-term technology development
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* Better control of parameters around phosphoramidite chemistry- smaller volumes, better volume precision, temperature measurement and control, humidity sensors and control
* Increase parallelization with smaller feature sizes and higher-density array technologies
* Reduce cost of high-throughput DNA synthesis technologies, such as by developing low-cost machine designs
* Scale-up of inkjet, e-jet and other matter deposition technologies
* Modern organic chemistry revamp of phosphoramidite chemistry (requires an organic chemist)
* Increase size of synthetic oligonucleotides from 200mers to 1000mers within 2-5 years
* Reduce toxic and organic waste from conventional phosphoramidite chemistry
* Acetonitrile and other reagent recovery from solid-phase synthesis machines
* Desktop/microfluidic DNA printers

Medium-term technology development
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* Optimization of phosphoramidite chemistry parameters (scientific experimentation around different all of the different variables, lacking at present)
* Coupling of phosphoramidite chemistry with biological enzymes
* Develop novel template-free DNA synthesis methods
* Investigation into unnatural or modified nucleotides as a basis for easier chemical synthesis
* Femtoliter-scale single nucleotide delivery to DNA synthesis reactions

Long-term technology development
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* Accurate, fast synthesis of very long DNA molecules
* Nanopore-based DNA synthesis and editing using deaminase enzymes (or other enzymes) to modify DNA molecules (continue editing in a loop until the sequence matches the desired sequence)
* Direct control of enzymes during DNA synthesis (both templated and template-free enzymes) such as through electricity, optics, etc.
* Invention of technologies for making protein encodings immune to frameshift (or other) errors during synthesis
* In vivo protein-based computers that synthesize DNA from radio/optical signals