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BioRealm Receives $1 million NIDA Award to Launch the Smokescreen®Genotyping Array for Research on Tobacco Dependence and TreatmentApproaches

Early Access to the Smokescreen® Genotyping Array Available in Fourth Quarter of 2013

Monument, CO (PRWEB) August 01, 2013 -- BioRealm, LLC announced today it was awarded a $1 millionSmall Business Innovative Research (SBIR) Phase II contract from the National Institute on Drug Abuse(NIDA) to develop and launch the Smokescreen® genotyping array for research on tobacco dependence andtreatment approaches. The array uses Affymetrix’ Axiom® genotyping technology to screen over 600,000genetic variants to support research related to nicotine addiction, smoking cessation therapies, andconsequences of tobacco use.

Smoking continues to be a leading preventable cause of disease, disability and death in the United States andworldwide. According to a recent report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, smoking wasestimated to be responsible for $96 billion in healthcare costs and an additional $97 billion in lost productivityin the United States annually. Due to the highly addictive properties of nicotine, people attempting to quitsmoking often fail. Genetics is known to play a role in how strongly tobacco users become addicted and howthey respond to different cessation therapies.

The Smokescreen product will be a targeted genotyping and software solution for scientists studying thegenetics of nicotine addiction and smoking behavior, including those conducting clinical trials of smokingcessation therapies. The array will have excellent coverage of genomic regions associated with addiction, aswell as biological pathways related to the metabolism of nicotine and the brain’s reward system. “Large-scale,disease-specific genotyping arrays have had a lot of success following up on prior research and discovering newrisk loci”, stated Christopher Edlund, Bioinformatics Principal at BioRealm. "Tobacco addiction scientists willnow have a unified genotyping array designed specifically for their research domain."

According to BioRealm, customers of Smokescreen will access their study data via a secure softwareapplication, built using the team’s statistical computing and genetics expertise. The software will featureautomated quality control, data analysis pipelines, and the ability for researchers from different institutions tocombine their data for powerful analyses.

During the two-year project, BioRealm will collaborate with top addiction researchers to develop a roadmap forfuture clinical products. "An important part of this project will be building a framework for biomarkerdevelopment, which may classify smokers and suggest smoking cessation therapies based on individualcharacteristics, including genetics," said Dr. James Baurley, Co-founder of BioRealm. "Our team will bedeveloping state-of-the-art statistical methods that combine all available data to build predictive models. Thisincludes biological information, existing study data, and Smokescreen data as it becomes available."

BioRealm is currently enrolling early-access users of the Smokescreen platform. Manufacturing ofSmokescreen genotyping arrays is expected to begin in the fourth quarter of 2013. Additional informationrelated to the Smokescreen product and early access could be found athttps://biorealmresearch.com/smokescreen.

About BioRealm:

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Founded in 2006, BioRealm develops solutions for genetic research and the biomedical industry.

This project has been funded in whole or in part with Federal funds from the National Institute on Drug Abuse,National Institutes of Health, Department of Health and Human Services, under Contract No.HHSN271201300004C.

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Contact InformationJames W. Baurley, Ph.D.BioRealm LLChttp://biorealmresearch.com+1 (855) 777-3256 2

Online Web 2.0 VersionYou can read the online version of this press release here.