State College-based Softgenetics is shifting into full sales mode this year on its sixth program for genetics researchers. Windows-based NextGENe will offer the company’s proprietary engines for accelerated sequencing of genetic codes to the newest generation of sequencing instrumentation–and provide researchers with a tool to interpret the vast amounts of data that the newest machines can capture from the mapping of complete genomes. The software will also apply error-correction processes that improve overall accuracy and mutation detection.
As the only worldwide player focused exclusively on the software side of gene sequencing, NextGENe targets the growth in research unfolding from the completion, in 2003, of the Human Genome Project, which was the first-ever identification of the 20,000 plus genes and the sequence of the 3-billion chemical base-pairs in human DNA. That scientific feat required an international partnership, $4 billion and 13-years to cross.
With the Human Genome Project to show the way, according to Softgenetics Partner and co-founder John Fosnacht, the costs of building on it have been falling rapidly, with researchers reporting enormous gains in time and geometric reductions in price–mapping an entire genome in less than 4 hours and, most recently, for $20,000. Along with others, Fosnacht foresees those costs dropping another 20-fold–to less than $1,000.
“That’s the Holy Grail,” he says. “At that price, the insurance companies will pay for it and that will allow the medical profession to identify inherited diseases and combine that knowledge with changes in the environment or stem cell therapies that can repair the DNA damage that might cause multiple sclerosis or, later in life, Alzheimer’s.”
And those are only one or two applications. Low-cost genome analysis will provide a revolutionary tool for research across a vast field of human, animal, and plant biology.
NextGENe, with its robust reporting system and powerful engine for interpreting–or “sequencing”–the data (so that researchers can read it) is attracting buyers such as the Mayo Clinic and the National Cancer Institute.
Building on this momentum, the company, which is in the process of finding new headquarters, also expects to add two staff this year with backgrounds in biology, C++ programming, and customer service–one of whom will have a PhD.
Source: Softgenetics, John Fosnacht
Writer: Joseph Plummer
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