OpGen Group Company Ares Genetics Nominated for Austrian Innovation Award for AI-powered Molecular Antibiotic Susceptibility Test
VIENNA, Austria, and GAITHERSBURG, Md., Sept. 08, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — OpGen, Inc. (Nasdaq: OPGN, “OpGen”), announced today that its subsidiary Ares Genetics GmbH (Vienna, Austria; “Ares Genetics”) has been nominated for the 40th Austrian Innovation Award (Ref. 1).
Ares Genetics has been selected by an expert jury as one of six finalists for its artificial intelligence (AI) powered, next-generation sequencing (NGS) based molecular antibiotic susceptibility test (AST) marketed under the brand name ARESupa – Universal Pathogenome Assay. The Austrian Innovation Award is awarded by the Federal Ministry for Digital and Economic Affairs and represents Austria’s most distinguished award for innovative companies.
In a press release announcing the nominees, Federal Minister for Digital and Economic Affairs Margarete Schramböck was quoted, “For the 40th time, the Ministry of Digital and Economic Affairs awards the Austrian Innovation Award for outstanding innovations and top achievements. Particularly in current times, innovation plays a very important role: The [nominated] companies strengthen the competitiveness of [Austria as a] business hub and thereby sustainably secure jobs. Moreover, innovative projects are of particular importance to jointly emerge stronger from the current [Covid-19] crisis.”
Information on antibiotic susceptibility of pathogens is of utmost importance for clinical practice, epidemiology and public health purposes as well as for the development of pharmaceutical products in the infectious disease sector. Ares Genetics has therefore developed the ARESupa – Universal Pathogenome Assay, which is capable of accurately predicting antibiotic susceptibility via AI-powered interpretation of high-throughput DNA sequencing data as demonstrated in a recent multi-center US study. The ARESupa is based on whole-genome sequencing of bacterial strains isolated from clinical specimens, combined with data analysis and interpretation powered by ARESdb, Ares Genetics’ unique, proprietary reference database on genetic antimicrobial resistance markers. ARESdb covers genomes of more than 55,000 bacterial strains and associated susceptibility data for more than 100 different antibiotics.
The ARESupa had already been recognized with the MERCUR Innovation Award in the category Life Sciences 2019 and is currently offered by Ares Genetics for non-diagnostic applications in epidemiology, infection control, and outbreak analysis for customers in the public health sector and the pharmaceutical industry through the Company’s AI-powered bioinformatics platform www.ares-genetics.cloud.