Parabon Awarded Government Contract to Develop Next-Gen Forensic DNA Analysis

By Laura Burgess

Software to advance Department of Defense forensic capabilities with support for latest DNA technologies

Reston, Va. (Ammoland.com) — Parabon® NanoLabs (Parabon) announced today the award of a two-year Department of Defense (DoD) contract to develop a novel software platform for forensic analysis of DNA evidence. Many analysis products support traditional DNA typing, however, emerging methods, such as high-throughput DNA sequencing (HTS) and single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) genotyping, require a collection of bioinformatics capabilities not supported by existing forensic applications. The platform created under this contract, referred to as “Keystone,” will provide an open architecture that allows bioinformatic data from any forensic science instrument to be analyzed via software plugins that integrate existing analytical tools or implement novel analytical methods. Parabon will develop plugins supporting common workflows, but Keystone’s architecture will also enable third parties to develop plugins for particular instruments or analysis.

Dr. Steven Armentrout, CEO at Parabon, says, “New DNA technologies like next-generation sequencing and DNA phenotyping have the potential to revolutionize the forensics field, and Keystone will be the first comprehensive forensics software platform able to analyze the gamut of genomic datasets.”

The Institute of Advanced Genetics (IAG) at the University of North Texas Health Science Center will …Read the Rest

Source:: AmmoLand