davemessina

Hi Jake,

While we have no immediate plans to hire out west, we are changing rapidly and that certainly could change in the future.

We'll be offering our test to patients through doctors and hospitals — imagine going for your annual checkup, and our test is ordered along with all of the other routine blood tests. This is the fastest route for us to be able to get our test onto the market and making a impact on people's lives.

I am not an expert in gene therapy, but I think getting the transcription or translation machinery to read the "good" copy instead of the stop codon would be the challenge there.

circRNA have so much value already as a way to diagnose disease — we're excited about just that powerful capability! Our understanding of circRNAs is just beginning, and it'll be interesting to see what other applications for them are invented.

Hi everyone! Dave Messina from Cofactor Genomics here. I'd be happy to answer any questions you might have.

Over half of the YC companies (us included) don't really need the money. The $120k investment is only a small part of what YC does.

See http://www.ycombinator.com/atyc/

Yes.

Thanks for your comments, and yes, you've got it exactly.

In cancer, both DNA and RNA can be effective diagnostics, and there's been a lot of great work on the DNA side in cancer.

In essentially all other diseases, though, there are changes in RNA but not in DNA.

That some circRNAs are lower in cancer than in normal tissue is a reliably detectable difference and is precisely what makes them an excellent biomarker.

There's additional evidence shown here: "Using circular RNA as a novel type of biomarker in the screening of gastric cancer". http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cca.2015.02.018

It's the fastest way for us to get this powerful diagnosis technology on the market and helping people.

We believe that our RNA test can become a routine part of a doctor's visit, both as an early indicator of disease and — if there is disease — as a means to monitor the effectiveness of treatment.

Hi Daniel,

We've filed patents on our work.

Is there any biotech patent landscape as bad as RNAi? :)

Here's a good place to start: http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/cr.2015.82

We are looking at Parkinson's, heart disease, and cancer initially.

We plan to offer testing through your doctor, rather than direct to consumer.

We are measuring circular RNAs.

Hi,

Great question.

We're developing tests around a recently discovered type of RNA called circular RNA. Tissue-specific circular RNAs are present in blood, and so that's how it's possible to use a blood test instead of having to go to tissue like you would with traditional mRNA-seq.

Hi everyone! Dave Messina from Cofactor Genomics here. I'd be happy to answer any questions you might have. We're excited to launch!