Inside LS9’s cluttered laboratory----funded by $20 million of start-up capital from investors including Vinod Khosla, the Indian-American entrepreneur who co-founded Sun Micro-systems----Mr. Pal explains that LS9’s bugs are single-cell organisms, each a fraction of a billionth the size of an ant. They start out as industrial yeast or nonpathogenic strains of E. coli, but LS9 modifies them by custom-designing their DNA. “Five to seven years ago, that process would have taken months and cost hundreds of thousands of dollars,” he says. “Now it can take weeks and cost maybe $20,000.”
LS9的实验室是由包括美籍印度企业家（太阳微机算计系统公司的合创者）维诺德.柯思拉在内的投资者提供2000万美元启动资金建立的。就在这个凌乱不堪的实验室里，帕尔先生解释道，LS9的细菌是单细胞微生物，比一只蚂蚁的十亿分之一还小。它们起初只是工业酵母或大肠杆菌的非病原菌株，但LS9通过定制设计它们的DNA对其进行改造。“5至7年前，这个过程要几个月的时间，而且要花费几十万美元。”他说，“现在，可能只需要几个星期，大概花费2万美元。”
