IndyGeneUS AI recently joined the residency at JLABS @ Washington, DC, in addition to winning the QuickFire Challenge.
IndyGeneUS AI is dedicated to advancing precision health equity. Howard University alumni make up 90% of IndyGenUS’ senior leadership and advisors.
Johnson & Johnson Innovation, in collaboration with Bunker Labs, a national nonprofit dedicated to providing the network, toolkits, and experiences needed to launch and develop successful businesses for the military-connected society, invited U.S. Veteran inventors and military spouses/legal partners to report potentially game-changing ideas in all areas of human healthcare.
IndyGeneUS AI, a black-owned and Service-Disabled Veteran-owned Small Business (SDVOSB), presented their splitting blockchain-encrypted and machine learning-powered biological data “GenUSTM Discovery Platform” to a panel of judges that included executives from both Bunker Labs and Johnson & Johnson Innovation.
“It’s critical that we sustain our veterans’ visions,” says Lenore Karafa, Bunker Labs’ Board Member President. “During their presentation, I was delighted to discover IndyGeneUS AI’s mission and the hard work and attention they are putting into eliminating health inequities.”
IndyGeneUS AI is a pinpoint accuracy genomics startup with the goal of building the largest global blockchain-encrypted virtual care platform comprising indigenous and westernized African clinical and genomic data.
By combining electronic health record (EHR) data, multi-omics data, and other textual information such as scholarly articles, IndyGeneUS AI can possibly recognize new signature sequences, generate polygenic risk scores and identify biomarkers.
“It is really a dream come true, and a little nostalgic,” stated Yusuf Henriques, founder of IndyGeneUS AI. “Now, IndyGeneUS AI will get its own lab at JLABS @ Washington, DC, on the former Walter Reed Army Medical Center campus, at Children’s National new Research and Innovation Campus. Over 20 years ago, I roamed the halls as a combat medic in the United States Army.
Now I have the chance to find new cell and gene therapies that could help to address health inequities and chronic conditions like retinitis pigmentosa (RP), which my twin girls were diagnosed with in 2014. This is my chance to keep my pledge to my daughters and find better treatment choices or a cure.”
IndyGeneUS AI will support this aim by providing workforce economic and social development to minority young men and women interested in learning more about genomics and pushing precision care through biotech employment.
The company will concentrate on whole genome analysis, which employs a variety of next-generation DNA sequencing tools and approaches to find genetic causes of diseases that disproportionately affect Black, Brown, and Indigenous peoples.
“Through large-scale whole-genome sequencing, we’re advancing our knowledge of the causes of human biology, health, and illness,” stated Dr. Bradford Wilson, Chief Scientific Officer of IndyGeneUS AI. “This will pave the way for precision medicines to minimize or eliminate global health inequities.”
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