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Natural Selection, Inc. Wins Phase II SBIR from the National Science Foundation: Two-Year Effort to Research and Develop Software for MicroRNA Detection and Analysis
La Jolla, CA – Natural Selection, Inc. has been awarded a two-year grant for approximately $406,000 from the National Science Foundation to research and develop software for microRNA detection and analysis. Researchers at Natural Selection, Inc. will adapt neural network architectures for the reliable and accurate prediction of functional RNA (fRNA) genes including microRNAs. The effort, funded under a Phase II Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant, seeks to extend and improve previous methods of fRNA gene discovery. “Our prior SBIR Phase I research resulted in the successful development of machine learning approaches for the discrimination of fRNA coding regions from noncoding regions in four model eukaryotes. This Phase II effort will focus on the refinement of evolved neural networks for ten key eukaryotes capable of discriminating fRNA coding from noncoding sequence information and experimental validation of predicted fRNA coding regions in humans and mice,” said Dr. Gary Fogel, Vice President of Natural Selection, Inc. and principal investigator on the SBIR. He continued, “We also expect to develop algorithms capable of discriminating between eukaryotic fRNA subtypes, evaluate this additional functionality, and develop a user-friendly GUI for the product. We envision rapidly translating these products to market."
Results of the Phase II research are expected to provide additional insights into the:
“As the number of experimentally verified siRNAs, stRNAs, and microRNAs continues to increase, the rate at which we verify these elements is largely dependent on the prediction of interesting regions followed by laboratory analysis. Laboratory analysis is slow and costly, and thus a key to increasing the throughput rate for discovery is in the accurate algorithmic prediction of regions of interest. The product resulting from this Phase II research will increase the predictive accuracy and the rate of fRNA discovery,” said Dr. Fogel.
Natural Selection, Inc. is a leading provider of evolutionary computing and neural network-based technologies to the pharmaceutical and medical industries, with prior and current efforts supporting both commercial and government-funded research, including structure-based drug design, diagnostic tools, and gene expression and analysis research for therapeutic purposes. "We are particularly encouraged that the National Science Foundation provides the opportunity to offer additional support up to $250,000 in matching funds when third parties invest in our technology. We are actively pursuing several avenues in this regard to ensure the broadest possible successful commercialization of our technology," said Dr. David Fogel, CEO of Natural Selection, Inc.
Natural Selection, Inc. was founded in 1993 to address complex problems in industry, medicine, and defense. The company possesses unique expertise in computational intelligence techniques, including evolutionary computation, neural networks, and fuzzy logic. The corporation's research efforts support the discovery of new pharmaceuticals, the automated detection and discovery of important patterns and processes in bioinformatics and medical informatics, computer-assisted diagnosis, and a variety of military and industrial projects.
For more information, please contact:
Dr. Gary B. Fogel
Vice President
Natural Selection, Inc.
3333 N. Torrey Pines Ct.
Suite 200
La Jolla, CA, 92037
tel: (858) 455-6449
fax: (858) 455-1560
gfogel@natural-selection.com
and please visit our web site at http://www.natural-selection.com/.