Pacific Biosciences and TychoBio, an AI-first drug discovery company, are collaborating to create RNA data to train AI models to be used in designing drugs.
Under the terms of the agreement, announced Oct. 6, the companies will generate data from full-length RNAs that TychoBio will use to train models to design RNA therapies. TychoBio will use PacBio’s Kinnex long-read RNA sequencing kits and HiFi sequencing on more than 10,000 samples. Financial and other terms of the deal were not disclosed.
TychBio plans to build large-scale datasets to link design of steric blocking antisense oligonucleotides to their effects across the transcriptome and plans to expand the approach to silencing RNAs and other RNA-targeting compounds. The results will be used as training data for models designed to predict which compounds are most likely to work, how long their effects may last, and where unintended effects may occur.
“AI models are only as good as the data they are trained on. To effectively identify new rare disease treatments, we needed the highest quality biological data, which can only be generated using PacBio HiFi sequencing technology,” TychoBio Founder and CEO Felix Raimundo said in a statement. “HiFi long-read sequencing lets us see across full-length transcripts, including changes in isoforms and splicing of how the transcriptome is affected in rare diseases and which treatments could modify disease processes.”
