NEW YORK (GenomeWeb) – Aperiomics has been awarded additional Small Business Innovative Research funding from the National Science Foundation, the firm announced today.
The funding, which totals $229,000, will support the further development of the firm's deep metagenomic shotgun sequencing-based test that can be used to identify infectious disease pathogens. The test detects all bacteria, DNA viruses, fungi, and parasites in a single sample, comparing sequencing results to the firm's proprietary database of more than 32,000 microorganism genomes.
Funding will also support improving the ability of the technology to interrogate challenging samples, such as clinical and forensic specimens, the firm said in a statement.
Started as a bioinformatics service provider named NextGen Diagnostics, the Ashburn, Virginia-based firm rebranded as Aperiomics in 2014. It previously received a total of approximately $1.5 million from the NSF, including Phase I and Phase II SBIR awards. Aperiomics also closed a $512,000 round of seed funding last year, led by a network of women angel investors called Pipeline Angels.
As previously reported, the firm offers its pathogen ID test service out of its CLIA- and CAP-certified laboratory, with a cost of $500 and turn-around time of about two weeks.