What You Should Know:
– Alida Biosciences (AlidaBio), an innovator in epigenomic research tools, proudly announces the successful completion of a $7.5 million Series A funding round. This funding, led by Genoa Ventures with participation from FusionX Ventures and Vertical Venture Partners, is complemented by two ongoing SBIR grants totaling $4 million from The National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI).
– Additionally, AlidaBio unveils the Early Access launch of two products: the EpiPlex™ RNA Library Prep Kit and the EpiScout™ Analysis Suite. These products provide a comprehensive solution for multiplexed epitranscriptomic analysis of input-limited clinical research RNA samples, offering unprecedented sensitivity and accuracy.
EpiPlex RNA Library Prep Kit Revolutionizes Epitranscriptomic Research
AlidaBio is proud to introduce the EpiPlex RNA Library Prep Kit, designed to revolutionize epitranscriptomic research through unprecedented multiplexed detection of RNA modifications. This innovative kit combines a streamlined assay workflow with an intuitive bioinformatics platform, enabling high-sensitivity analysis of RNA modifications.
The epitranscriptome, a diverse array of naturally occurring RNA modifications, plays a crucial role in regulating RNA biology. This includes RNA-protein interactions, splicing, three-dimensional RNA structure, transcript stability, intracellular trafficking, and translation. Traditional methods for detecting RNA modifications rely on antibody-based and chemical approaches, which are limited to detecting a single type of modification per assay and require high RNA input amounts.
The EpiPlex kit addresses these limitations by utilizing non-antibody binders (NABs), which exhibit high affinity and minimal off-target binding. This results in superior reproducibility, sensitivity, and accuracy, even with low RNA inputs. The early access launch follows successful beta testing, with customers reporting high satisfaction with the improved workflow and exceptional data quality.
Complementing the EpiPlex kit, the EpiScout Analysis Suite offers an intuitive bioinformatics platform for analyzing and visualizing complex epitranscriptomic data. This suite streamlines data interpretation, providing researchers with powerful tools to explore RNA modifications and integrate multiomic data sets.
The EpiPlex kit is particularly suited for profiling multiple RNA modifications in clinical research samples with limited RNA input. Tissue samples, clinical biopsies, and other native biological materials typically yield small quantities of total RNA, with mRNA constituting only 1-3% of this total. The kit’s high sensitivity and efficiency ensure high-quality results from even the smallest RNA samples, driven by the NABs’ high affinity and specificity, without increasing sequencing depth requirements.
The successful Series A funding for AlidaBio underscores investor confidence in our innovative approach. This funding will accelerate product development and efforts to bring the EpiPlex kit to market, maximizing its impact in the field.
“The AlidaBio EpiPlex Library Prep Kit proved to have several advantages over alternative methods,” said beta customer Dr. Daniel Kupers of Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. “We observed ease-of-use going from input RNA to sequence-ready libraries all in one kit, time savings and usability for situations with limited amounts of RNA, and lower background than other methods. The inclusion of bioinformatics analysis with EpiScout is also a plus, as high-quality calls are challenges with other methods.”