Omicia frees VAAST data to find vital gene variants

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From a narrow office in Emeryville, software engineers with experience designing systems like those that help retailers price products quickly are working on a way to allow medical researchers to rapidly identify gene variants.
VAAST — the Variant Annotation, Analysis and Selection Tool — was developed by Omicia Inc. and scientists at the University of Utah, with the help of a $400,000 federal recovery act grant from the National Human Genome Research Institute. It could be introduced commercially later this year.
“From the first day we wanted to focus on clinical management,” said Martin Reese, Omicia’s co-founder, chairman and CEO. “Researchers come in with a clinical question and you try to solve it.”