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Genomenon Awarded $1.8M SBIR for Genomic Literature Mining Application

NEW YORK (GenomeWeb) – Genomenon has received a $1.8 million Small Business Innovation Research grant from the National Institutes of Health to support work on its medical literature database.

The Michigan-based genomic interpretation software company has developed an automated process to mine medical publications, allowing geneticists and pathologists to comb through data and genetic information in minutes instead of hours. The firm's initial product, called Mastermind, was released in February and is "a novel analytic and data visualization tool that accelerates gene and variant curation by providing immediate insight into millions of scientific articles from the primary medical literature," the firm said in a statement.

The SBIR funding will be used to expand the Mastermind database with millions of additional articles covering various genetic diseases. Phase I funds will be used to perform concordance testing between the Mastermind database and current gold-standard references of genomic knowledge. Phase II will focus on refining applications using the Mastermind database, including the development of ancillary software to inform patient diagnosis and research discovery.

Genomenon raised $1.8 million in extended seed funding last year after previously raising $940,000 in an oversubscribed seed venture funding round.

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