Oxford NanoLabs, BioNanomatrix Raise $25M In Private Funding for Nanotech Sequencing

April 08, 2008

By Julia Karow

Oxford NanoLabs, a UK-based spinout from the University of Oxford that is working on DNA nanopore sequencing, last month raised £10 million ($20 million) from existing non-VC institutional and private investors. Meanwhile, BioNanomatrix of Philadelphia raised $5.1 million in a Series A funding round last month to develop its single-molecule sequencing and genome analysis platform.

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In this issue of In Sequence

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A Conversation with the American Museum of Natural History's George Amato

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Young Investigator Profile

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Assistant Professor
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DARPA's Synthetic Army

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Papers of Note

Connection Between Epigenome, Selective Mutability, Evolution, and Human Disease
Li, Harris et al., PLoS Genetics
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Genetic Data for Modern Genetic Breeds 'Have Yet to Shed Light on Dog Origins'
Larson, Karlsson et al., PNAS
A team led by researchers at the University of Durham investigate the value of modern genetic data to elucidate the origins of dog domestication by analyzing 49,024 autosomal SNPs in 19 wolves and 1,375 dogs, representing 35 breeds. The team reports having uncovered conflicting evidence when correlating the earliest archeological dogs with the geographic locations of 14 breeds thought to be ancient. "These genetically distinct ancient breeds only appear so because of their relative isolation, suggesting that studies of modern breeds have yet to shed light on dog origins," the authors write.
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Science
A pair of studies, one published in Nature and one published in Nature Genetics, detail the efforts of researchers who used exome sequencing to look into the mutational profiles and pathways that can contribute to prostate cancer. The first group found nine genes with recurrent somatic mutations, six of which had previously been implicated in the disease. The second group demonstrated that recurrent mutations in the ubiquitin ligase-coding gene called SPOP define a non-ETS gene fusion containing prostate cancer subtype.
Business
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Funding
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Genome Technology Magazine
More than a decade ago, fluorescent reporter studies highlighted the stochastic nature of gene expression, and biologists then began to examine the phenotypic heterogeneity they saw in clonal cell populations, through they chalked up what they saw to noisiness in gene expression. Still, researchers wondered about the cause of the randomness they had observed. Now, biophysicists and systems biologists are looking into that question and aim to figure out how and why single cells and molecules behave the way they do, and the consequences of that behavior.

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Oxford NanoLabs, BioNanomatrix Raise $25M In Private Funding for Nanotech Sequencing

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Young Investigator Profile

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