NEW YORK (GenomeWeb News) – Genetics-based diagnostic company GigaGen today said that it has received four grants totaling more than $1 million to develop and validate its Cell-Seq technology to aid in the prediction of immune flares in transplant recipients and autoimmune patients.
The grants are from the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation. Three will go toward the development, validation, and characterization of the San Francisco-based company's Cell-Seq technology, which measures genotype and expression of dozens of target genes across millions of single cells, GigaGen said. The technology enables massively parallel single-cell genetic analysis.
The fourth grant will be used to develop web-based tools for processing, analyzing, and visualizing Cell-Seq data.
Using microfluidics and next-generation sequencing, the Cell-Seq technology will be the first to empower physicians to monitor a patient's disease-specific immune activity and provide care on a personalized basis to prevent and treat immune flares, GigaGen said, adding it expects to commercialize its first clinical test in 2013 at leading academic medical centers.
Earlier this year GigaGen and Dolomite announced a deal to co-develop a droplet merger chip for massively parallel single cell genetic analysis.