NEW YORK (GenomeWeb) – Maverix Biomics today announced it has won a $150,000 award from the National Institute on Drug Abuse to do research into the detection of modifications in RNA transcripts.
San Mateo, Calif.-based Maverix is collaborating with Eric Phizicky at the University of Rocheste rto develop a high-throughput analytic kit that will enable researchers to detect different kinds of RNA modifications in human cells in neurological disease.
The Small Business Technology Transfer Phase I Award will help fund development of a wet- or dry-lab kit, which will include reagents, a set of experimental manipulations for analyzing modifications, and cloud-based analysis software through the Maverix Analytic Platform.
"We believe it is essential to provide simplified, standardized methods, which include both innovative molecular detection chemistries, as well as straight-forward data analytics so any RNA sample can be scrutinized for new biological discoveries," Todd Lowe, chief scientist for Maverix, said in a statement. "High-throughput sequencing has become commonplace thanks to high-quality sample preparation kits, and we believe we can advance the state of the art in RNA modification research similarly with this project."