NEW YORK (GenomeWeb) – Pressure BioSciences announced today it has received a two-year grant for a little more than $1 million from the National Human Genome Research Institute to develop technology for next-generation sequencing applications.
The Small Business Innovation Research Phase II grant will go toward the development of an automated, high-throughput, high-pressure system to better control DNA fragmentation. Pressure Bio said the technology will be based on advancements over the traditional hydrodynamic DNA shearing approach that has been used in DNA sequencing.
The South Easton, Mass.-based company announced during the summer its plans to develop a front-end sample preparation system for Parabase Genomics' targeted NGS platform. During the past year, Pressure Bio also has been in discussions with other NGS firms about the possible use of its technologies in their sample prep workflow. The NHGRI grant could accelerate the development of the system being developed for Parabase, and in turn, result in more meaningful discussion with other NGS firms, Pressure Bio VP of marketing and sales Nate Lawrence said.