Knome selected as a genome interpretation partner for Illumina Genome Network

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Firms partner to offer Illumina’s high-quality genome sequencing services in combination with Knome’s advanced genome interpretation solutions

CAMBRIDGE, MA – April 3, 2012 – Knome Inc., the human genome interpretation company, announced today that it has been selected by Illumina, Inc., (NASDAQ: ILMN) as a partner in the Illumina Genome Network (IGN). As part of the agreement, IGN customers will have access to preferential pricing for Knome’s genome interpretation tools and services. The agreement also calls for the companies to further integrate their data pipelines in order to provide end users with accelerated turnaround times.

“Knome’s software tools and services, knomeBASE and knomeDISCOVERY, are well positioned to help address the needs of Illumina’s customers,” said Scott Kahn, Vice President and Chief Information Officer at Illumina. “IGN will provide fully processed and summarized genomic information from its whole genome and cancer analysis services directly to Knome, which will use the data to deliver subsequent interpretations. These reports include comprehensive annotation and interactive analyses that are very attractive to users with little or no in-house bioinformatics expertise, and to those who want to perform multi-sample analysis.”

“We have often worked together on a case-by-case basis to provide researchers with a complete sequencing and interpretation solution—the most recent example being the landmark 1,000 genomes asthma study by Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine,” said Ari Kiirikki, Knome’s Vice President of Business Development. “Now that we have entered into a formal partnership, we look forward to working together to proactively identify researchers, drug developers, and clinics with interpretation bottlenecks in order to deliver a seamless end-to-end solution.”


About Knome
Knome is a life sciences company that specializes in the interpretation of human genomes. Knome provides tools and solutions that help researchers, drug developers, and clinicians determine the genetic basis of human disease and drug response. In 2008, Knome had the distinction of being the first company to interpret a human whole genome for a commercial client. Since then, Knome has worked on over 100 interpretation projects in more than two dozen countries.

Knome expands executive management team, positions company for growth

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Appoints Charles Abdalian as CFO, Adam Rosenberg as Head of Corporate Development, and Jay Therrien as Head of Global Sales

CAMBRIDGE, MA – April 3, 2012 – Knome Inc., the human genome interpretation company, today announced that it has continued to strengthen its executive management team, adding Charles Abdalian as Chief Financial Officer, Adam Rosenberg as Senior Vice President and Head of Corporate Development, and Jay Therrien, PhD. as Senior Vice President and Head of Global Sales.

“We are very pleased to bring on several outstanding, seasoned life sciences executives as we prepare Knome for rapid growth,” said Martin Tolar, MD, PhD, Chief Executive Officer of Knome. “These exceptional individuals will help us further extend our leadership in the interpretation of whole genomes as we capitalize on expanding commercial opportunities.”

Chuck Abdalian
As Chief Financial Officer, Mr. Abdalian is responsible for all financial aspects of the company. He is a seasoned life sciences executive with more than 30 years of experience in both large public and early-stage private companies. Most recently, he served as Senior Vice President of Finance and Chief Financial Officer of Molecular Insight Pharmaceuticals. Before Molecular Insight, Mr. Abdalian served as Senior Vice President of Finance and Chief Financial Officer at Coley Pharmaceutical Group, Inc., where he raised $135 million in equity, directed the company’s IPO, and ultimately led its negotiations to be acquired by Pfizer in 2008. Prior to joining Coley, Mr. Abdalian served as CEO of Pelias Technologies, Inc., a venture-backed early-stage drug development company. and CFO of Emisphere Technologies, Inc., a development-stage drug delivery firm. Mr. Abdalian holds a BS from Norwich University and an MBA from The Wharton School.

“I am delighted to join Knome as we accelerate the expansion of the company’s business. With leading technology and world-class genome interpretation capabilities, Knome is clearly well positioned to grow rapidly to meet the vast opportunities that are emerging in the genomics marketplace,” said Mr. Abdalian.

Adam Rosenberg
As Senior Vice President, Head of Corporate Development, Mr. Rosenberg is responsible for all transactional aspects of the company, in addition to developing Knome’s intellectual property strategy and playing a leadership role in establishing Knome’s partnerships in the pharmaceutical/biotech industry. He is an experienced life sciences executive who has played a key role in founding and building a number of successful companies. Over the last three years, he has been advising emerging companies as a director and consultant and also co-founded Clean Membranes, Inc., a start-up developing materials technology licensed from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. From 2005 through 2009, Mr. Rosenberg was CEO of Link Medicine Corporation, a company focused on discovering and developing disease-modifying neurodegenerative therapies. Under his leadership, Link grew to a clinical-stage company, secured more than $50 million in equity financing, in-licensed a compound initially developed by a major pharmaceutical company, and built a scientific team to accelerate a novel neuroscience R&D platform.

Mr. Rosenberg is also an experienced transactional lawyer. He helped launch and build Faber Daeufer & Rosenberg PC, a successful boutique business law firm focused on representing leading investors, companies, and research institutes in the life sciences. Previously, he was a member of the corporate finance and private equity practice groups at prominent law firms in Boston, Seattle, and New York. He also helped launch Ovation Capital Partners, an early-stage technology venture capital fund. Mr. Rosenberg holds a BA from Whittier College and a JD from University of Virginia School of Law.
“Knome is well situated to play a fundamental role in leading the impending revolution in personalized medicine and genomics, and I’m excited to join the team,” said Mr. Rosenberg.

Jay Therrien, PhD
As Senior Vice President of Global Sales, Dr. Therrien is responsible for Knome’s global sales effort. He is an accomplished sales executive with extensive experience in the commercialization and sale of genomic products and services. He has built high performing sales teams and sales channels in the Americas, Asia Pacific, and Europe across a range of customer segments, including academic, government, clinical, and pharmaceutical. Most recently, Dr. Therrien was Vice President, Commercial Operations, Sequencing at Life Technologies, directing sales and support activities for capillary electrophoresis, SOLiD, and Ion Torrent sequencing instruments. From 2004 to 2009, Dr. Therrien worked for Illumina, Inc., in various sales leadership roles, including Director of Sales for Asia Pacific and Japan. Earlier in his career, Dr. Therrien held technical and senior scientist roles at companies with products and services in sequencing and microarray applications. He holds a BS from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a PhD from the University of Kansas.

“This is an amazing time to join Knome. As the cost of sequencing rapidly declines, the next big commercial opportunity will be helping researchers and clinics manage and interpret the abundance of data being generated. I look forward to expanding the sales of Knome’s interpretation products to new markets and new geographies,” said Dr. Therrien.

About Knome
Knome is a life sciences company that specializes in the interpretation of human genomes. Knome provides tools and solutions that help researchers, drug developers, and clinicians determine the genetic basis of human disease and drug response. In 2008, Knome had the distinction of being the first company to interpret a human whole genome for a commercial client. Since then, Knome has worked on over 100 interpretation projects in more than two dozen countries.

Catch Knome on NOVA

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Untitled2 Catch Knome on NOVAOn Wednesday, March 28th, Knome appeared on a special episode of NOVA, Cracking Your Genetic Code.

In the show, we help describe how the interpretation of human genomes is helping to solve medical mysteries and revolutionize personal healthcare.

“Insights from our own DNA will soon help each of us understand and manage the distinctive health risks we face.  Our genomes will thus take their place alongside family history, face-to-face visits, and lab tests, as cornerstones of clinical care.”  Dr. Pearson explains, “NOVA brings us a thoughtful glimpse of the challenges and promise of this coming era of genomically personalized medicine.”

The episode is available online. Check it out if you have the chance—it’s very well done.


GATTACA: is there a gene for the human spirit?

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Screen Shot 2012 05 11 at 4.58.21 PM 350x498 GATTACA: is there a gene for the human spirit?Contributed by Elizabeth Ricker

What better group to view the dystopic science fiction movie Gattaca than those attempting to discern and make real the better parts of its science?  In early spring, the Knome team crowded into our conference room to watch this 1997 film.  Nearly all of our staff assembled to eat pizza, watch the film, discuss the science and moral dimensions of the genomic technologies that we ourselves are bringing into the world.

Post-movie discussion ranged from what genetic traits are possible to select for to considering whether the pursuit of a genomic ideal (assuming such a thing exists) could be ethically pursued.  As a cutting-edge genome interpretation company with a commitment to the highest ethical standards, what is Knome’s educational responsibility?

It is often said that art mirrors life and life mirrors art—but with a lag. In the world of Gattaca, laws protect citizens from being discriminated against in employment and health insurance due to their genetics (a discrimination called “genoism” in the movie), but in practice, the law is easily circumvented. More than ten years after the film’s release, the 2008 Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act (GINA) prohibits genetics based employment and health insurance discrimination. State level proposals such as CalGINA, as well as the VT, CT, and MA addendums take even stronger stances. At this point, it is still unclear how much life will mirror art. Will these well-intentioned laws also fail?

In Gattaca, Ethan Hawke’s character must create a fake identity because he is repeatedly cut off from opportunities due to his genetic profile. Hawke’s character acknowledges the grim reality of his limited prospects and deviously works around them. Through secrecy, enormous determination, persistence, and personal sacrifice, he pursues his professional dreams. Jude Law plays his counterpoint, a man genetically privileged but ultimately underachieving. Despite his ostensible genetic disadvantage, Ethan Hawke is ultimately the more successful of the two. Thus the tagline of the movie: there is no gene for the human spirit.

Like many such conversations, the Gattaca discussion here at Knome raised as many questions as answers. For instance, there was debate about whether there could ever be genetic markers for the persistence, optimism, and resilience demonstrated by Ethan Hawke’s character—a ‘gene for the human spirit’. We are enthusiastic about the positive role that our products and services will play, but we must carefully demarcate areas of uncertainty as well. The answers are fascinating but complex.

Genomics heralds a new and exciting world. We must strive to make it an ethical and thoughtful one, too. With any great technology comes the potential for good or harm, but the same carefulness of thought that makes discovery itself possible can and should be utilized in navigating the ethical and logistical challenges of applying it. If there is a gene for the human spirit, we will be calling upon it to meet the challenge of the genomic era.

Thoughts on genomes, health, and the new paper on risk prediction from twin studies

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A controversial new paper from Nicholas Roberts, Bert Vogelstein, and colleagues starts with a simple and longstanding observation: so-called identical twins don’t always get the same diseases.

Reviewing data from old twin studies, the authors try to use that observation to help answer an important question: how genetically heritable are various diseases, overall? And, beyond that, how does genetic risk vary among people? That is, for a given disease, do genomes contribute a portion of risk that varies widely, but smoothly, from person to person – or a portion of risk that varies more sharply from person to person…or some mix in between?

Below we offer some thoughts on the paper’s strengths, weaknesses, and the open questions that science is tackling in the important field of genomic medicine.

Continue reading →

Knome appoints Hugh Y. Rienhoff, Jr., MD to Scientific Advisory Board

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Dr. Rienhoff brings deep industry and technical expertise as Knome continues to expand

CAMBRIDGE, MA – April 3, 2012 – Knome, Inc., the human genome interpretation company, today announced that it has continued to expand its scientific advisory board to include respected life sciences expert and industry pioneer, Hugh Y. Rienhoff, Jr., MD.

“We are very pleased to appoint Dr. Rienhoff to our scientific advisory board,” said Martin Tolar, MD, PhD, Chief Executive Officer of Knome. “Dr. Rienhoff brings a unique, diverse, and deeply entrepreneurial perspective that will further strengthen our scientific advisory board as we pursue new drug development and clinical applications of Knome’s technology. We look forward to benefiting from the depth and breadth of his insights.”

Dr. Rienhoff has more than 20 years of experience as a technology visionary, entrepreneur, and venture investor in life sciences. He is currently a Managing Director of Life Science Venture Partners and serves as an Adjunct Scientist at the Children’s Hospital Oakland Research Institute. In the field of genomics, Dr. Rienhoff is known for the founding of the nonprofit organization MyDaughtersDNA.org, a community focused on aiding those with challenging genetic conditions. He presently serves as Chief Executive Officer at FerroKin BioSciences, a company he founded as part of his ongoing interest in the treatment of rare disorders. Previously, Dr. Rienhoff served as Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Board of DNA Sciences, Inc., a privately held biotechnology company he founded in 1998 (formerly Kiva Genetics, Inc.). He was also a founding director of Healtheon Corporation, a health-focused Internet portal now widely known as WebMD Health.

“Knome brings together the team, technology, and application focus needed to bring genomics into the practice of medicine—and ultimately the lives of patients. This is a pivotal time for Knome: rendering genomic data manageable and actionable to a broad array of users will drive Knome’s ultimate success in addressing the dynamic needs of key markets. I am excited to join the Knome advisory team and look forward to helping Knome maintain its leadership position in the application of human genomic information,” said Dr. Rienhoff.

Dr. Rienhoff previously has served as a General Partner of Vanguard Ventures and as a Partner of New Enterprise Associates. Dr. Rienhoff was a member of the faculty in the Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics at The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. He trained in mathematics, medicine, and genetics at Harvard University, Johns Hopkins University, and the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, Washington, and received an MD from The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

Knome’s scientific advisory board is chaired by George Church, PhD, Professor of Genetics at Harvard Medical School, Director of the Harvard-Lipper Center for Computational Genetics, and cofounder of Knome. Other members of the board include Lincoln Stein, MD, PhD, Professor at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory and Platform Leader of Informatics and Biocomputing at the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research; David Goldstein, PhD, Professor of Molecular Genetics & Microbiology, Professor of Biology, and Director of the Center for Human Genome Variation at Duke University; Yaniv Erlich, PhD, the Andria and Paul Heafy Family Fellow and Principal Investigator at the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; and Anthony Sinskey, ScD, Professor of Microbiology and Health Sciences and Technology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

About Knome
Knome is a life sciences company that specializes in the interpretation of human genomes. Knome provides tools and solutions that help researchers, drug developers, and clinicians determine the genetic basis of human disease and drug response. In 2008, Knome had the distinction of being the first company to interpret a human whole genome for a commercial client. Since then, Knome has worked on over 100 interpretation projects in more than two dozen countries.