The fifth DigNA webinar, “Chemical synthesis of DNA: from solid-phase to large-scale synthesis of DNA libraries & microarrays,” took place on 19 February 2026 and attracted over 80 attendees. The event was moderated by Robert Grass and featured the two speakers Martin Jost and Mark Somoza.
Martin Jost is a co-founder and chief scientific officer at Kilobaser, where he contributed to the development of a personal desktop DNA and RNA synthesizer based on microfluidic chip technology. He studied molecular biology and informatics at Graz University of Technology and the University of Graz. In 2013, he co-founded the Open Biolab Graz, Austria (OLGA), a community laboratory for molecular biology and biohacking, where the idea for Kilobaser emerged from the founders’ own frequent need for DNA primers. Within the DigNA portfolio, Kilobaser is a partner in the DNAMIC project, contributing decentralized on-site oligonucleotide synthesis capabilities for DNA-based data storage applications.
Mark Somoza is an associate professor of Chemistry at the University of Vienna. His research is in nucleic acid chemistry and chemical biology, focusing on large-scale synthesis of nucleic acids using photolithographic approaches and the applications of the resulting microarrays and libraries, including digital data storage in DNA, nucleic acid-binding proteins, spatial transcriptomics, and CRISPR-Cas systems. He is a partner in DiDAX, part of DigNA, a portfolio of projects funded under the 2022 EIC Pathfinder challenge: DNA-based digital data storage. He is also a co-founder of Vienna-based Helices Biological Photolithography, a company that manufactures equipment for photolithographic nucleic acid synthesis.
The presentations outlined the basics of solid-phase synthesis as well as a variety of modern approaches for large-scale synthesis of DNA libraries and microarrays. Modern chemical synthesis of DNA follows the highly efficient phosphoramidite approach developed in the 1980s by Marvin Caruthers and Serge Beaucage. Initially focused on the solid-phase synthesis of single oligonucleotides, the approach’s versatility has enabled adaptation to large-scale applications, specifically automated in situ microarray synthesis of up to several million oligonucleotides in parallel. These microarrays were originally used for genomic applications, but their use has been expanded in recent years to include massively parallel synthesis of libraries for applications including digital data storage in DNA.
All DigNA webinar recordings are available on the PEARL-DNA YouTube channel.