Public Funding for Pragmatic Genomics Limited

The commoditisation and decentralisation of DNA sequencing has completely changed biological research, with similar changes underway in biological engineering across agroindustry, biotech, pharma, diagnostics and treatment of disease. A key challenge that accompanies the resulting opportunities is for staff scientists to make sense of the spectacular amounts of data that they can now easily generate. The BLAST analysis algorithm has been foundational to biological engineering since 30 years -- it is used for comparing DNA or protein sequences. Historically, it has typically been applied in a "google search"-type manner where scientists query a public database using a central server funded by the US National Institutes of health. The decentralisation of DNA sequencing challenges this model. We developed SequenceServer Cloud, a software that enables individuals and teams of biologists to perform BLAST analysis of proprietary DNA and protein-sequence data. Our software's intuitive user experience and advanced visualisation capabilities accelerate discovery across agroindustry, pharma, biotech, academia and non-profit sectors. We will use InnovateUK funding to create two new products that complement SequenceServer Cloud's existing functionality. These new products will enable work and increase productivity of scientists and technicians working across biological engineering areas, including for molecular diagnostics, improving agricultural practices, and synthetic biology.