GenomeQuest Inc., Westborough | Ronald Ranuaro, CEO
GenomeQuest Inc. has a database that can be compared to Google for gene researchers, according to Ronald Ranuaro, the company's CEO.
"The foundation of biology are gene sequences; the codes that make us human and make all other life on the planet," Ranuaro said. "We're able to develop algorithms for finding specific gene sequences."
Data Driven
The company, which designates itself as a life sciences informatics or a computational biology company, keeps updated on publicly available gene sequence research, organizes the information and keeps it in a database. It has developed multiple algorithms depending on what sort of sequence search is necessary.
There are academic labs that produce the raw material as well as government institutions around the world and all of this is publicly accessible information. "The challenge is keeping it up-to-date," Ranuaro said.
And one of the biggest helps that Massachusetts Biomedical Initiatives gave the company was the purchase of a heavy-duty computer that could be shared by any or all of the incubator companies, providing a resource none of the companies could fund on their own.
"The incubator was very instrumental from our standpoint. The sequencing of the human genome is very recent and we're still at the beginning of this biological revolution. The computer resource allowed us to proof our prototype. Having to buy one like that ourselves would have been a major barrier to entry for us," Ranuaro said.
As more emphasis is placed on finding non-chemical answers to issues, the company has found itself also developing agriculture, energy and environmental remediation customers.
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