ELECTRONIC BIOSCIENCES, INC. — Department of Health and Human Services SBIR Phase I: 172

Description

Project Summary While very substantial progress has been made over the last 10 or so years with regards to next generation sequencing (NGS) and third generation sequencing (TGS) of DNA, the development of novel and enabling tool sets for RNA sequencing has lagged significantly. During this project, we aim to make significant progress with regards to that gap by developing and validating an entirely new solid-state sequencing platform, developed specifically and ideally for direct RNA sequencing, including its structural complexities and nucleotide modifications, all with high accuracy. While there are over 100 known RNA nucleotide modifications, due to the lack of analytical characterization methods available, the exact roles of these modifications remain to be determined. The technology that will be developed during the project will be capable of elucidating the roles of these modifications, and revolutionizing our understanding and use of the transcriptome/epitranscriptome.Project Narrative A method/technology capable of directly (without transcription) sequencing RNA, with extremely high accuracy and the inherent ability to identify nucleotide modifications, has the potential to revolutionize the use of the transcriptome and epitranscriptome, radically change standard Randamp;D practices, as well as enable revolutionary diagnostics and therapeutics. The entirely new direct RNA sequencing methodology/technology that will be developed during this project will overcome known hurdles and limitation with currently available NGS, TGS, and single-molecule sequencing (SMS) approaches, resulting in technology that is cost efficient, highly accurate, easy-to setup and utilize, capable of de novo sequencing and modified base calling, and capable of producing highly simplistic data for easy analysis and post possessing.