BOSTON, December 1, 2020—Seven Bridges, the industry-leading bioinformatics ecosystem provider, today announced that Seven Bridges GRAF^TM was named #3 on The Scientist magazine’s Top 10 Innovations of 2020. Seven Bridges GRAF, which was first announced in June 2020, re-envisions the human reference genome as a graph, thereby aiding researchers in visualizing DNA information from diverse populations both to eliminate bias in genomic data from non-European populations and allow for new genomic variant discovery.

The Scientist’s annual award recognizes exciting biomedical technologies that have the potential to generate the biggest impact on scientific research. Seven Bridges GRAF was selected by The Scientist’s independent panel of expert judges for its potential to improve methods for analyzing next-generation sequencing data, helping researchers overcome the inherent flaws in the human genome linear reference sequence, and improving understandings of genetic diversity in understudied populations such as people of African, Asian, Hispanic and Middle Eastern descent.

“Seven Bridges is the first to offer this type of graph-based bioinformatics solution,” said William Moss, CEO of Seven Bridges. “This recognition underscores the greater importance Seven Bridges GRAF^TM brings to the research community and its value in helping scientists develop new understandings of global population diversity. We hope that this research ultimately improves precision medicine across global populations.”

The company’s comprehensive graph-based bioinformatics solution is designed to greatly improve the analysis of non-European ethnicities; support large, more diverse population studies; enable research on underrepresented populations; and aid in the development of personalized references for more precise analysis. Seven Bridges GRAF enables:

• Large human population studies by using a population-specific genome graph comprising millions of individuals
• Rare disease studies by using a curated graph containing mutations associated with the disease
• Precise analysis of individual genomes by making use of bespoke genome graphs and family genome graphs leading to accurate de novo mutation detection

“The COVID-19 pandemic birthed a shared scientific purpose and accelerated innovation in 2020,” said The Scientist Editor-in-Chief Bob Grant. “The winners of this year’s competition embody the spirit of togetherness and ingenuity marshaled by the research community in the face of this unprecedented challenge.”

In addition to the honor from The Scientist, this year, Seven Bridges GRAF was selected as the top performer in the precisionFDA Truth Challenge for the major histocompatibility complex (MHC) region.

“The MHC region contains highly polymorphic genes that play a vital role in the immune system, making it difficult to accurately process NGS data in this region,” said Dr. H. Serhat Tetikol, the GRAF Product Director at Seven Bridges. “From a computational perspective, the complexity of such genomic loci is only exacerbated when one takes into account the variation between different ancestries. This is where the current linear human genome reference clearly falls short, and where our GRAF technology can provide significant utility over traditional methods.”

For more information about Seven Bridges GRAF, visit www.sevenbridges.com/graf/.

About Seven Bridges

Seven Bridges enables researchers to extract meaningful insights from genomic and phenotypic data in order to advance precision medicine. The Seven Bridges Ecosystem consists of a compliant analytic platform, intelligently curated content, transformative algorithms, unprecedented access to federated data sets, and expert on-demand professional services. This holistic approach to bioinformatics is enabling researchers — at the world’s leading academic, biotechnology, clinical diagnostic, government, medical centers, and pharmaceutical entities — to increase R&D efficiency, enhance the hypothesis resolution process, isolate critical biomarkers, and even turn a failing clinical trial around while also reducing computational workflow times and data storage costs. To learn more, visit sevenbridges.com or follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter.

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