This article is also available in Italian / Questo articolo è disponibile anche in italiano
The startup GenoGra aims at democratising access to graph-based genome analysis in the biotech, pharmaceutical and clinical sectors, enabling applications such as crop improvement through genetic selection to increase yield and disease resistance.
The analysis platform, whose prototype was validated in a pilot study with geneticists, offers innovative analysis performance and a completely new way of examining DNA and RNA data. In fact, GenoGra developed an innovative representation of genomic data based on graphs: interconnected networks of genetic information provide unprecedented analysis quality and scalability. This encoding of data also allows to standardise most modern analysis processes, reducing complexity and the number of software tools required.
Designed for different types of users, from academic researchers to clinicians, the platform offers specific tools and analysis workflows for different purposes and it is “designed for any type of application concerning computational genomic analysis, so certainly human medicine, but also analyses of bacteria, viruses, plants, animals, etc”, says Mirko Coggi, IP Strategic of Genogra, to Renewable Matter. Thanks to the interconnection of information, GenoGra's approach allows genomic analysis to scale up in parallel with the massive production of data generated by new sequencing technologies. Furthermore, it improves the accuracy of the analysis, bringing us ever closer to a truly personalised medicine.
“Our business model is a B2B and sees research centres, hospitals, pharma & biotech as customers and bioinformaticians working for such realities as end users,’ Coggi added.” The platform is provided on cloud with a fixed payment for the client facility and with a price variation depending on the number of users, or as on-premise solution with an annual licence payment.”
The Milan-based company is composed by four researchers and a professor, all from the Milan Polytechnic, and it already won the Switch2Product (S2P) 2021 Innovation Challenge. Now, it is engaged in the Terra Next acceleration programme. In addition to opening an investment round of €600,000, GenoGra team submitted an Italian patent application in Italy to cover the technology behind the proposed tool, later extended to the Patent Cooperation Treaty, an international patent system. This technology is a search engine capable of efficiently finding sequences of interest within genomic graphs, exploiting heterogeneous computational architectures.
Website
Name:
GenoGra
Sector:
Biotech
Plus:
Collection of genomic sequences into a single network of interconnected information, highlighting genetic variability
Features:
Platform for population studies using genomic graph technology
Cover image: GenoGra’s team