Synthego Receives Intel Capital Investment to Advance CRISPR Bioinformatics

Redwood City, California – October 19, 2017 – Synthego, a leading provider of genome engineering solutions, announces an investment from Intel Capital for the advancement of bioinformatics tools and technologies. This represents Intel Capital’s first financing in bioinformatics related to the CRISPR workflow.

With the pace of CRISPR genome engineering research increasing rapidly alongside continued efforts to sequence genomes worldwide, advanced tools and processing power are needed to make use of the resulting data volumes. Projected acquisition rates of genomics data are expected to approach one zeta-bases, or 250 million terabytes, per year by 2025. This will require up to ten trillion CPU hours for applications such as variant calling and genome alignments, and more if utilizing complex CRISPR design and targeting algorithms.

"Data is the key that can unlock the doors between today’s research and tomorrow’s cures," said Wendell Brooks, senior vice president of Intel and president of Intel Capital. "We are excited to invest in the Synthego team, and we look forward to the life changing breakthroughs a data-oriented view can deliver to medical researchers."

"With CRISPR, we’ve entered a new era of genome engineering capabilities," said Rich Stoner, PhD, Chief Science Officer at Synthego. "Working with Intel, we will be able to build equally powerful bioinformatics tools that enable the next generation of genome design and analysis."

Earlier this year, Synthego launched powerful new CRISPR Workflow Software, consisting of a guide designer and design validator, to accelerate the guide RNA design process for CRISPR gene knockouts. Spanning a dataset of over 113 billion targets across more than 123,000 genomes, the new CRISPR Workflow Software encompasses the largest scope of genomes in the market, and can reduce the CRISPR guide design process from hours down to less than a minute.