NEW YORK — Plex Research said Friday that it has formed a drug discovery collaboration with Ginkgo Bioworks to use artificial intelligence-based approaches for analyzing a large gene expression cell perturbation dataset.
Financial and other terms of the alliance were not disclosed.
Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Plex is developing AI technologies that can be used for drug discovery applications including toxicity and off-target analysis, hit characterization, and biomarker discovery and validation.
Under the terms of their deal, Plex will work with Ginkgo Datapoints — a Ginkgo Bioworks unit launched last year that generates biological data for AI model training — to analyze a large-scale transcriptomics dataset that measures compound-induced gene expression across diverse human cells.
According to Plex, Ginkgo Datapoints' GDPx2 dataset consists of data generated from four human primary cell types, 85 compound treatments, six doses, and four replicates using DRUG-seq, an ultra-high throughput, miniaturized transcriptomics assay.
"The combined power of our robust, end-to-end data generation services, particularly in high-throughput transcriptomics using primary cells and other complicated cell models, with the innovative data analysis capabilities from Plex Research could unlock new, clinically relevant insights related to diseases and treatments," John Androsavich, general manager of Ginkgo Datapoints, said in a statement.