Uira Souto Melo, Chief Executive Officer at Lucid Genomics, described his company as an AI start-up that uses AI to analyse 100% of the genome, including both coding and non-coding regions, to improve drug target identification and clinical trial success. Melo homed in on the significance of adding genomics information to clinical trials. He stated that factoring in genetics can improve the success rate of the clinical trial 2.6 times.
According to Melo, the pharma industry is behind in realising the full potential of genomics. The main reason for this is the reliance on short reads, which are of poor quality and very noisy. With short reads, it is also easy to miss large deletions and duplications in the genome.
The team developed an AI-powered Genomics Cleaner to significantly reduce false positives in short-read sequencing data, which is still used by over 90% of the market. They also built multiple machine learning algorithms, one to filter trustworthy structural variants, another (TADA) to better rank pathogenic variants, and a third that integrates tissue-specific epigenetic data to improve accuracy.
Ultimately, the hope is that this will lead to a better understanding of patient heterogeneity at the molecular level, thus reducing trial failures. Examining the protein-coding part and non-coding part is not just important for target identification but also for target validation using multiomics datasets.
Lucid Genomics has several active collaborations with research institutions, including Max Planck and Charité, to highlight the importance of non-coding DNA and expand into clinical diagnostics. Melo mentioned that he is continuing to seek partnerships with other companies interested in using comprehensive genomic and multiomics analysis to boost clinical trial outcomes. With this in mind, Lucid Genomics is leading the way in uncovering missing DNA signatures in patients with rare and complex diseases to support diagnosis and treatment.
