Belgrade-based Seven Bridges Genomics gets USD 3 m in UK for the first functional graph genome in the world

Seven Bridges Genomics, Serbian-American firm based in Belgrade, London and Boston received 1, 95 million pounds (some USD 2,9 m) from the Ministry of health of the United Kingdom and Genomics England to finish and launch "Graph Genome", the first function a representation of referential genome recorded in the form of a graph as well as tools which can operate the representation, "Startit" reports.

This is the second valuable contract of the company recently - late last year, they received USD 5,8 m as a part of the initiative of the National Institute for cancer USA for development of "Cancer Genomics Cloud Pilot" initiative. These contracts make this innovative, bio-technological startup to be less of a startup (inherently risky) and make it more a company which has perspective future in front of itself.

"Graph Genome" is a revolutionary tool which can keep and analyze genetic information. It enables researchers and clinics to analyze large sets of human genome in faster and more affordable manner than it has been so far and contains an algorithm which improves itself with every new analysis making it more accurate than the previous one. Apart from that, it can make patient’s genetic material completely anonymous, keeping important information for research and interpretation.

Through "Graph Genome", scientists will be able to extract genetic materials of population and thus provide clinics personalized treatment and comparation of patients’ genomes with larger population genomes.

Availability of commercialization of "Graph Genome" and connected tools will be a step ahead in the world’s understanding of life grounds. Seven Bridges Genomics brings accuracy, punctuality, speed and quality data in order to bring improvement to researches, clinics and patients worldwide, Deniz Kural, the head and co-founder said.

Apart from the first world referential genome in the form of a graph, the team is launching also a set of tools which will enable scientists to use them - graph aligner, branch geno-typer and local assembler, graph database, genome browser, and disease-focused applications.

All these tools will be started from Seven Bridges platform, bio-informatics, calculation and storage cloud which enable growth without any capital investments and comes with expertise of more than 100 biologists, bio-informatics engineers, engineers and other experts.

Seven Bridges Genomics was set up in 2009 with an objective to build cloud platform for genetic analysis and researches. It was the first platform of that type in the world and it would speed up, facilitate and make activities of this type cheaper for medical users, "Startit" reports.