Innovative proposals from UC Santa Cruz Genomics Institute affiliate faculty members Ed Green, Daniel Kim and other UCSC faculty members have been awarded a total of $25,000 by the campus program that assists promising technologies in becoming commercially viable — the UCSC Industry Alliances & Technology Commercialization (IATC) Office’s Launchpad award.

Green co-directed a project focusing on the generation and validation of BarUMini beads as well as Haplotype phasing using BarUMini beads. BarUMIni beads can be used for many genomic sequencing applications including haplotype phasing, genome assembly, targeted sequencing and transcriptome analysis. BarUMIni beads can also be used for cancer diagnostics, tissue transplant matching and other molecular diagnosis.

Kim directed a development of an invention that transforms liquid biopsy by detecting RNA instead of DNA. While existing DNA based tests can show that a cancer-causing mutation is present they do not have tissue specificity. Using RNA this method allows specific determinations about the presence of cancerous mutations in lung and pancreatic tissue.

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