oecd

Genomics & bioinformatics

OECD theme: sequencing, omics and biological data infrastructure.

Where it's used

AI drug design & AlphaFold applications
AI-driven drug discovery — AlphaFold structure prediction, generative chemistry and physics-based virtual screening — compressing the target-to-candidate pipeline from years to months.
therapeutics-platforms 7 min
Biocomputing and DNA computing
Computation and storage carried out in molecules and living tissue rather than silicon — DNA archives with in-sequencer random access, error-correction codecs tolerating error rates near 14% and sequence loss up to 65%, genetic circuits implementing half and full adders, and biohybrid systems that compute with slime mould and fungal networks.
bioinformatics-omics 10 min
Biodiversity genomics
Sequencing and archiving the genomes of all eukaryotic life to support ecosystem restoration and bioprospecting.
ecosystem-restoration 6 min
Bioinformatics & multi-omics
Sequencing, single-cell and spatial omics, and biological AI that turn raw reads into decisions — a stack from sample to interpreted multi-omics.
bioinformatics-omics 5 min
Biological AI & bioinformation services
The AI, machine-learning and bioinformatics software-as-a-service layer — cloud platforms, generative biological foundation models and managed analysis pipelines — sold to pharma, biotech and industrial-biology teams rather than run as in-house drug pipelines.
bioinformatics-omics 9 min
Bioluminescence & marine fluorescent proteins
Engineered luciferases and fluorescent proteins derived from jellyfish, deep-sea shrimp and other marine organisms, redesigned via directed evolution and computational protein design into ultra-bright, photostable research tools for drug screening, cell imaging and protein-protein interaction detection.
marine-biotech 9 min
DNA synthesis & gene foundry
The commercial gene-synthesis service and biofoundry layer of synthetic biology — turning digital DNA designs into delivered genes, clones and strain builds through phosphoramidite and emerging enzymatic synthesis, governed by pathogen-sequence biosecurity screening.
foundries-design 7 min
Epigenetic clocks & biological-age diagnostics
Reading DNA-methylation patterns across hundreds of thousands of CpG sites to compute a person's biological age and pace of aging, rather than the calendar age on a birth certificate, turning a $229-799 saliva or blood test into the primary read-out for the longevity industry.
diagnostics-medtech 10 min
Genome editing
Programmable genome editors — CRISPR-Cas9, base editors and prime editors — delivered ex vivo or in vivo via lipid nanoparticles to treat genetic disease, from the first approved CRISPR therapy Casgevy to in-vivo redosable CRISPR and single-dose cardiovascular base editing.
genome-engineering 8 min
Genomics & DNA design
Writing genomes rather than just reading them — DNA synthesis at scale, de novo synthetic chromosomes and DNA-based digital data storage, complementing the sequencing/analysis side of genomics.
bioinformatics-omics 8 min
iGEM infrastructure, BioBricks and standard genetic parts
The shared substrate synthetic biology runs on — a registry of standard parts and the student competition that populates it, nonprofit plasmid repositories, commercial gene synthesis reaching 7,000 base pairs on complex sequences, and automated biofoundries whose assemblies are now validated by long-read sequencing.
foundries-design 11 min
Intelligent genetic switches (kill switches)
Synthetic gene circuits that force engineered organisms to depend on external chemical signals for survival, self-destructing or losing viability once released into the environment — the biocontainment standard now required before any regulator clears a synthetic-biology product for open-system field trials.
genome-engineering 8 min
Lab automation & liquid handling
High-throughput robotic liquid handling systems and integrated laboratory automation platforms that exponentially increase assay throughput, eliminate human error, and enable next-generation genomics and synthetic biology.
automation-robotics 6 min
LIMS/ELN for bioproduction
Integrated Laboratory Information Management Systems (LIMS) and Electronic Lab Notebooks (ELN) serving as the digital backbone for biopharma R&D, cell line development, and cGMP commercial manufacturing.
digital-it 7 min
Long-read sequencing services
Third-generation (long-read) sequencing as a service — PacBio HiFi and Oxford Nanopore platforms resolving repeats, structural variants and direct epigenetic modifications that short-read NGS cannot.
bioinformatics-omics 6 min
Metabolomics (service)
Contract research platforms that profile the small-molecule metabolome of blood, tissue or bioreactor broth via LC-MS/GC-MS, turning raw chromatography data into biomarker panels, drug-response readouts and bioprocess metabolic profiles for pharma, nutrition and industrial-fermentation clients.
bioinformatics-omics 8 min
Minimal genomes & synthetic cells
The frontier of building life de novo — stripping genomes down to a minimal viable chassis (top-down) and assembling artificial cells from non-living parts (bottom-up) to make predictable, biocontained cell factories.
genome-engineering 8 min
Prime editing
Search-and-replace genome editing with a Cas9 nickase fused to a reverse transcriptase and an extended pegRNA — writing all 12 base substitutions and small indels without a double-strand break.
genome-engineering 8 min
Proteomics (mass-spec CRO)
Mass-spectrometry proteomics as a contract research service — deep DIA proteome profiling, targeted MRM/PRM and affinity proteomics for biomarker discovery and pharmacoproteomics.
bioinformatics-omics 6 min
Single-cell omics
Per-cell mapping of genomes, transcriptomes and proteomes as a contracted service — moving biology from bulk-average reads to cell-by-cell atlases for drug-target discovery and patient stratification.
bioinformatics-omics 7 min
Sovereign genome databases (plants, animals, microbes)
National-scale reference genome databases for plants, animals and microbes — built by hybrid long-read de novo assembly, Hi-C scaffolding and AES-256 / homomorphic encryption — under Nagoya ABS compliance and sovereign biosecurity control.
monitoring-conservation 6 min
Spatial epigenomics
Mapping chromatin accessibility, DNA methylation and histone marks directly on a tissue section instead of a dissociated cell suspension, using in situ Tn5 transposition and microfluidic barcoding to build 3D atlases of a tumor's epigenetic state at 10-micron resolution — the layer of hardware and reagents beneath precision oncology's biggest 2026 push.
bioinformatics-omics 8 min
Spatial transcriptomics & spatial multi-omics
Mapping gene expression — and increasingly proteins — directly onto intact tissue sections, so each transcript keeps its x/y address and the tumour microenvironment becomes a navigable map rather than a bulk average.
bioinformatics-omics 10 min
Structural biology (cryo-EM CRO)
Cryo-electron microscopy as a contract research service — atomic 3D structures of membrane proteins and drug targets for structure-based drug design, displacing X-ray crystallography.
bioinformatics-omics 6 min
Synthetic biology
The engineering of biology — designing DNA, cells and genetic circuits on computers, building them in biofoundries and scaling them into chemicals, materials and ingredients through the Design-Build-Test-Learn cycle.
genome-engineering 8 min
Toxics screening (toxicomics, service)
Contract safety assessment that takes a drug candidate from in-silico ADMET triage through in-vitro panels (hepatotoxicity, hERG, CYP induction) to GLP in-vivo studies, delivering the IND-enabling toxicity package regulators require — now augmented by toxicogenomics and virtual control groups.
bioinformatics-omics 8 min
Xenobiology & expanded genetic alphabet (XNA)
Orthogonal biological systems built on xeno-nucleic acids, unnatural base pairs and genomically recoded organisms that incorporate noncanonical amino acids into proteins — enabling site-specific drug conjugation and a genetic firewall against horizontal gene transfer with wild species.
genome-engineering 9 min