This is really remarkable.<p>I've used Transcriptic in a research setting for a while now. From a user's perspective, it's like looking into the future, and it's awesome.<p>From the business side, this makes YC a more attractive option for biotech startups. The life sciences are still very capital intensive. While the New YC Deal helps in this department, many businesses still need to look toward an STTR/SBIR grant from the NIH to get to the stage where they have a product to show investors.<p>Moves like this probably won't change that for a ton of companies, but there are a few on the margin who may be able to pursue an idea through YC with the benefit of the extra $20K in fuel.
Any interest in working with expression re fermentation down the line? CROs working specifically with .25-2L tanks are very tricky to find, price and deal with, and are not local to many biotech firms in the bay. About 25% of my time is spent just managing our CRO/CMO, and they only have 4x2L tanks. I used to work for a place with multiple parallel tanks (30+) that made DoEs expedient and was a great resource - but sadly not something I can tap into at my small biotech firm.<p>Combining what you're building with something with a ambr250 or even just a bunch of Applikon micros or wellplate fermenters could see a lot of action (though something like the ambr250 would fit your business model better, robotics > people).<p>I'll be contacting you for information about FACS, protein quantitation and cell viability work. Stuff I definitely want to farm out.
So someone would ship samples to you guys, then your LIMS/robotic automation handles data-flow and actual physical work? Where are you guys storing all the data?<p>I have two hesitations to point out:<p>1) I worked in DNA, and the small little issues that cropped up on every major platform (MiSeq/HiSeq/iontorrent,454,etc) seems like it would make automation of fixes difficult. I guess if you are keeping a stricter list of reagents, parameters, etc, then you could help prevent this, but then people aren't pushing the edge science quite as much.<p>2) So much data! My systems used to generate over 200gb per day. Good luck downloading that via any api if you have anything but fiber. Do you intend to allow computation to be run on data as a cloud service? If so, I can see this going big places... as long as you allow full control of the VM for all the bio-hats and their custom wizjangles.<p>I'm out of the industry and have one year left on my non-compete, but I wish you the best of luck! Especially on the LIMS integration: a good LIMS is freaking expensive!
This is the first I've heard of Transcriptic, but it sounds amazing.<p>Initially I was sceptical of YC working with startups which would have more conventionally come out of universities etc., but this is the sort of technology that has the ability to completely revolutionise scientific research.
Great move Max!<p>This is Omri (founder of Genomecompiler.com). I'm always amazed about how many biologists think their work is pipetting small amounts of liquids and performing massively low productivity experiments rather then their real work of increasing our understanding of nature and finding solution to real world problems (like disease, hunger, aging, running out of civilization critical commodities, etc) using the best available tools.<p>Robots aren't taking our jobs - they help us be more productive so a biologist Ph.D. might in the future get paid like a CS undergrad!
Very cool concept! I guess it's also another point to show that the number of jobs (in this case, lab assistants) that can't be automated away is getting smaller and smaller.<p>Just an observation though, I'm not a luddite about this.