IEEE Spectrum November, 2014 - 31

RESOURCES_STaRT-UPS

SolveBIo
A bioinformAtiCS CompAny
wAntS to bridge genomiC
reSeArCh And itS AppliCAtionS

heap DNA-sequencing tech-
nologies have sparked rapid
grow th am ong b iom e dic al
companies looking to create new diag-
nostic tools and personalized therapeu-
tic drugs, and even to give consumers
insight into their own genomes. How-
ever, the raw data from an individual DNA
sequence actually isn't very informative
on its own; as is the case with a raw trace
of GPS data, making sense of an individ-
ual DNA sequence usually means situat-
ing it in the context of a map. And that's
what New York City-based SolveBio is
doing: building a kind of Google Maps
for genomics, by combining both public
and private data sets into a standardized,
quality-controlled collection. Computa-
tional biologists and bioinformaticists can
then enhance their own software by pro-
gramming it to tap into SolveBio's knowl-
edge base using an online connection.
The motivation to build SolveBio was
born out of cofounder and CEO Mark Kaga-
novich's frustrations with the typical lab's
low-tech approach to bioinformatics. While
at Stanford pursuing a Ph.D. in genomics,
Kaganovich noticed that he spent most of his
time cleaning and organizing external data
sets, and he realized that other researchers
and developers had the same problem.
Kaganovich hacked together some
ideas for standardized and shared access
to common data sets with his friend David
Caplan. The duo brought on as cofound-
ers Paul George and David Gross to build
the infrastructure and develop the online
application programming interfaces, or
APIs, that programmers use to integrate
SolveBio into their applications.
SolveBio's curated data library includes
hundreds of data sets for genomics, pro-

iStoCKphoto

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teomics, and the clinical and scientific lit-
erature used to annotate these collections.
Imported data is normalized to allow results
from different sources to be combined.
"In order for medicine to advance substan-
tially, we will need more precise, molecular
descriptions of disease. This means [infor-
mation about] DNA, RNA, proteins, small
molecules, and other things that is digital,
precise, and specific," says Kaganovich.
Recently, SolveBio announced a seed
round of US $2 million from venture-capital
firms Andreessen Horowitz and SV Angel
and individual investors including Charlie
Cheever, Max Levchin, and Flatiron Health's
Nat Turner and Zach Weinberg.
There are several companies working in
the same broad area of genomics software
as SolveBio, including Bina, DNANexus,
Illumina, and Seven Bridges Genomics.
SolveBio differentiates itself by focusing
on building a public API-accessible refer-
ence rather than providing software tools
to analyze private genome sequence data.
"There is a tremendous wealth of pub-
lic data that can be integrated and mined
towards new discoveries in biology and

medicine. However, these data sources
are disparate, and it often takes a tremen-
dous amount of work to wrangle and main-
tain all of the large-scale data sources you
need to do the kind of biomedical infor-
matics investigations we need to advance
medicine," says Joel Dudley, director of
biomedical informatics and assistant pro-
fessor of genetics and genomic sciences
at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount
Sinai, in New York City.
"One challenge SolveBio will face is in
integrating clinical data from electronic
medical records and other sources. This
type of data presents several challenges
ranging from maintaining patient privacy
to dealing with inherent biases in how
clinical data is collected," says Dudley.
-boonSri diCkinSon

Company: Solvebio founded: 2013
headquarters: New York City
founders: David Caplan, Paul George, David
Gross, Mark Kaganovich,
funding: US $2 million funders: Andreessen
Horowitz, SV Angel; Charlie Cheever, Max
Levchin, and Nat Turner and Zach Weinberg (from
Flatiron Health) employees: 8
website: http://www.solvebio.com

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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Spectrum November, 2014
