Genomics
The Human Genome Project opened up the floodgates for the study of genomic variation and pathway analysis. Collaborative efforts such as the International HapMap project and the Cancer Genome Atlas, plus the trend toward personalized medicine and targeted drug development, are driving questions about the role of genetic variations: how do these variants behave in a population as well as in an individual? Answering these questions has been hampered by a gap in available technology as most studies have focused on common variants. However, rare alleles, which are difficult to detect, possess additional clues to the answers being sought.
Enthusiasm from the scientific community for technology that allows affordable high-resolution analysis of genetic material is growing rapidly. Most agree that much variation in physical and mental attributes, and responses to therapeutics can be traced to variations in DNA. These initiatives are fueling the commercialization of higher quality and lower cost instrumentation. Certain fields, such as array genotyping and next-generation DNA sequencing, are experiencing expansion that far exceeds the life sciences market average.
RainDance's planned applications will provide for the first time methods that allow for discovery of BOTH common and rare variants by enabling DNA sequencing for targeted regions in the genome. With this approach, scientists can accelerate research in the areas of personalized medicine and diagnostics, leading to eventual clinical treatment modalities. Our initial application focuses on maximizing the efficiency of next-generation sequencing processes and workflows to enable routine analysis of large numbers of samples by targeted resequencing. Other applications are planned that will support epigenomics and single cell analysis. Our unique platform stands on the horizon of the next breakthrough in solutions for the genomics community.
