Wednesday, August 1, 2007

NABSys nabs $1.3M in NIH grants

NABsys Inc., a developer a DNA-sequencing technology, will benefit from two new federal grants worth a total of $1.3 million, awarded by the National Institutes of Health to accelerate the mapping of human genomes, the NIH reported.

The grants come on the heels of the Providence, R.I.-based firm's closing of a $750,000 tranche of a $1.5 million private financing last month, according to a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filing. NABsys CEO Barrett Bready declined to comment on the funding.

The NIH's National Human Genome Research Institute awarded grants to John Oliver, vice president of research and development at NABsys, and to a co-founder of the startup, Xinsheng Ling, who is a professor of physics at Brown University, according to the NIH. The agency announced a total of eight grants.

Both Oliver, who was awarded a two-year grant of $498,000, and Ling, who received a three-year award of $820,000, garnered the federal funds to advance their research of a genome-mapping technology known as hybridization-assisted nanopore sequencing. The technology involves moving DNA through nanoscale openings (measured in one-billionths of a meter) to decode genomes.

Bready said that, though Ling was awarded his grant through his lab at Brown, NABsys has licensed the technology for which the NIH awarded funding to Ling.

The National Human Genome Research Institute reports that its ultimate goal is to reduce the cost of mapping a human genome from today's $5 million to $1,000, enabling the technology to become available on a widespread basis.