Gates Foundation funds biotech company cataloging the viruses that infect bacteria
Summary
A Seattle DNA analysis startup is taking on a project with global ambitions with $5.5 million in new funds from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the U.S. National Institutes of Health.Phase Genomics will catalog the diversity of viruses that infect bacteria in samples from the human gut and wastewater. This January, they published a version of their technique in Nature Biotechnology with colleagues.Key to the companys core technology is a method called proximity ligation, which involves chemically sticking pieces of DNA together that are near each other in a cell or bacterium. Analysis of the large datasets enables researchers to understand which phages infect which bacteria.The team can pull out viral-host genome information by the buckets, said Liachko.The new project aims to provide the foundation for a surveillance system that could identify and respond to emerging microbial threats worldwide. FMT is used to treat Clostridium difficile infections and is being tested in hundreds of clinical trials.Company researchers are assessing the population of phages and bacteria in patients before and after the procedure. The result could be an array of potential new therapeutics for a variety of conditions.The Gates Foundation is contributing $3.5 million to the project, building on previous funding to the company, and the NIH is providing $2 million through a recently announced small business grant.Phase Genomics will own the database but make it available to certain groups at cost or free through global access agreements.Individuals who volunteer stool samples for the project will have access to their results, showing the microbial diversity of their gut.