Truckee Applied Genomics careers

Problems: Costly, lifesaving, targeted therapeutics require more accurate and distributable molecular diagnostics for patients to be prescribed prompt care, and for payers to avoid unnecessary costs of failed diagnosis and delayed treatments. Today, up to 40% of molecular diagnostic tests are inconclusive. A key cause is DNA and RNA damage from biopsies fixed in industry-standard toxic formalin. Molecular diagnostic tests can cost up to $6,000 per test. Just a 25% inconclusive test rate on a $1,000 test drives $250 of waste per test, much of which is caused by the $1 cup of formalin in which each sample is placed. Far exceeding the waste per test costs are the high costs of delayed treatment, when retesting is even medically possible.
Related, rapidly growing new single cell technology is limited to immediate on-site use, as samples cannot be effectively shipped to distant core lab facilities without irreparable damage to precious analytes such as RNA. There is a clear unmet need for sample transport solutions to enable distributed, and therefore scalable, single cell work flows.
Finally, COVID-19 awoke the world to the need for systematic pandemic preparedness including large scale variant tracking though genomic sequencing. Foundational to this is the need to better stabilize both proteins and RNA so that every positive test, be it a rapid antigen test (protein-based) or an accurate PCR test (RNA-based) can also be sequenced to track viral variants.

Solution: TAG's globally patented sample stabilization reagents platform improves the efficacy of molecular diagnostics by ensuring high-quality DNA, RNA, proteins, and tissues. Granted US patents include: 10,772,318 - 9,949,474 - 9,565,852 - 9,445,586 and 9,113,623.