At Draper, we addressed the need for genetic context as part of FELIX, or the “Finding Engineering-Linked Indicators” program. Funded by the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA), the FELIX program sought to develop technology for rapid, accurate, and cost-effective detection of GMOs.
The goal of FELIX is to find engineered organisms within a mixed sample containing potentially millions of unmodified organisms. Our solution combines a miniaturized microarray capture device—a novel application of DNA hybridization—and a computational pipeline and dashboard that displays actionable information.
Similar in size to a postage stamp, our technology can detect genetic engineering in any biological organism and can analyze samples from complex, multi-species environments. In addition to demonstrating a dramatically better signal-to-noise ratio than existing methods, the accompanying computational pipeline we developed enables analysis and interpretation of the data, simplifying the identification of genetically engineered regions using next-generation sequencing data.
Another advantage of the Draper technology is that the wet-lab process does not destroy the sample which enables the sample to be preserved for additional types of analysis.
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