Radiation Biodosimetry
Visualize and Quantify Inversions with dGH SCREEN™
dGH SCREEN™, the original KromaTiD assay, was initially utilized by NASA to monitor the effects of ionizing deep space radiation in their astronauts. Famously dubbed the “Twin’s Study” using our dGH™ platform and paints. This was NASA’s first foray into “omics” research (genome DNA sequencing, RNA sequencing, methylation/epigenetics, proteomics, metabolomics), and as such represented a unique opportunity to develop personalized medicine approaches to measuring individual responses to spaceflight. We played an important and complementary role by designing the dGH™ assays and validating the candidate structural rearrangements.
From 2015 to today our dGH SCREEN™ platform is still being used by NASA to assess structural rearrangements in the genomes of their best and brightest. dGH SCREEN™ technology is a unique single stranded design allows researchers to visualize and quantify inversions as an inherently more stable biodosimeter than dicentrics, which enables them to obtain data much longer after a radiation event. In addition to greater stability, inversions occur with lower background frequency than other symmetrical aberrations such as translocations, providing fewer false positives and more reliable data.