Coral Genomics, Inc. — Department of Health and Human Services SBIR Phase I: 172

Description

Project Summary As the capacity of next generation sequencing machines has increasedthe marginal cost of shallow sequencing has become much higher than that of deep sequencingFor the development of novel protocolsquality checkingand targeted clinical sequencingsequencing demand is often far less than an entire sequencing runThis issue can be resolved if a user can find a partner performing a high depth sequencing run tospiketheir library intoBy pooling samples togetherboth users can save considerably on sequencing costsHoweverthis process of finding sequencing partners is subject to local availability of sequencing supply and demandMoreovervariation in representation due to user error and library specific biases can reduce the efficiency of the poolingAn integrated platform for sample pooling called WeSeq is proposedThe primary goal of WeSeq is to maximize the time and cost efficiency of next generation sequencingWeSeq develops algorithms to quickly turnaround sequencing analysis results to end users and to minimize the representation biases associated with pooling large numbers of diverse libraries togetherWe develop enzymatic approaches for greatly increasing DNA barcoding capacity and for reducing the number of sequencing required for applications such as single cell RNA seqUltimatelywe hope ot make next generation sequencing affordable and fast enough for it to become routine in research and clinical applications The ability to sequence DNA has provided us with a molecular microscope to diagnosedetermine mechanismsand design precision therapeutics to help treat a range of illnesses from congenital disorders to cancerWhile sequencing costs have dropped dramatically in the last decadethey have begun to plateau in the past few yearsespecially for shallow sequencingBy efficiently pooling samples from across the countrysequencing will become more readily accessible!