CATALOG News and Updates

Welcome to CATALOG News and Updates. CATALOG is starting the year with an enormous amount of momentum. Last year we demonstrated the potential of our technology by encoding the entire English version of Wikipedia into synthetic DNA. This year, our top priority is to further advance the commercialization of DNA for storage and computing by working closely with a growing team of partners to use synthetic DNA for storage and computing to solve problems they face every day. We've expanded the team, introduced Shannon, named a Scientific Advisory Board, and secured a Series A round investment.

Catalog CEO Hyunjun Park now has a regular column appearing in Forbes.com. In his first article, The Next Technology Disruption Is As Old As Life Itself, Hyunjun addresses the concepts of innovation and disruption, and how organizations are examining DNA Storage to address the reality that humanity has never had the ability to store and process all the available data.

If your organization is interested in partnering with us to apply DNA storage and computational technologies, please contact David Turek.

Introducing Shannon

Named in honor of the father of information theory, Claude Shannon, CATALOG has created the world's first commercially viable device for DNA storage and computation. CATALOG's custom-developed DNA writer and data storage system, Shannon, uses technology similar to inkjet printers to convert the zeros and ones used to store binary data in traditional storage into a combination of pre-synthesized DNA molecules. This system can write at a speed of Mb/sec, over a trillion unique DNA molecules in a single run which is the equivalent of GB of data.

New Investors Join CATALOG

Last fall, CATALOG announced $10 million in Series A Funding. Horizons Ventures led this current oversubscribed round, joined by Airbus Ventures, and the investment will be used to fund early product trials and continued Research and Development. To date, CATALOG has raised $21M through additional investors, including NEA, OS Fund, Data Collective, AME Cloud, and SOSV, among others. To read more, click here.

CATALOG Expands Executive Team, Adds additional Key Scientists

Last Fall, CATALOG named David Turek as CTO. David brings more than 25 years of executive experience to CATALOG. He joined CATALOG from IBM, where he held several executive positions leading the company's high-performance computing strategy. Turek led the commercialization of the IBM Deep Blue Supercomputer, which defeated world chess champion Garry Kasparov, spearheaded programs to create the world's most powerful supercomputers, including Roadrunner and Blue Gene, and launched innovative business models around open source for high-performance computing. Several times in his career, Turek has testified to the United States Congress on the future of computing in the U.S. and has helped establish technical collaborations with universities, businesses, and government agencies worldwide. As CTO, Turek will be responsible for technical strategy, business development, and collaborations.

Additional new members of the team include principal scientist Tracy Kambara data scientist Liz Shtrahman, and senior software engineer Cheryl Jones.

Tracy Kambara holds a Ph.D. in Genetics and Genomics from Harvard and a B.S. Biology from MIT. Before joining CATALOG, Tracy was a Senior Member of the Technical Staff at Draper Labs on the Synthetic Biology team. Before that, Tracy worked on DNA research for government programs such as DARPA and IARPA.

Liz Shtrahman holds a Ph.D. in Physics from the University of Michigan and is a Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology, at Harvard. Liz's postdoctoral work focused on investigating the neuronal activity patterns underlying learning and memory in behaving animal models, emphasizing data analysis and modeling.

Cheryl Jones holds a degree in Biology from MIT but has been a software professional for her entire career spanning everything from voice, numerical analysis, storage and hotel IT. She has extensive start-up as well as large company experience.

CATALOG Names Advisory Board

In December, CATALOG announced a new Advisory Board to help speed the CATALOG's mission of being the first commercially DNA-based offering for computing and storage.

Key members with extensive academic, scientific, and government lab expertise joining the advisory board include:

• Anne Condon, Ph.D. and Professor at the University of British Columbia. Anne's research is focused on computational complexity theory and design of algorithms. She has extensive experience in bioinformatics, hardware verification, and combinatorial auctions. Much of her current work focuses on models (such as Chemical Reaction Networks) and algorithms for computing with molecules and methods for predicting DNA kinetics.

• Brenda Dietrich, Ph.D. and Geoffrion Family Professor of Practice at Cornell University and a member of the National Academy of Engineering. Brenda joined Cornell in 2017 after a 33-year career at IBM, where she was one of less than 100 active Fellows. At IBM, she managed the applied data and computation to business decision processes. For over a decade, she led the Mathematical Sciences function in the IBM Research Division. She was responsible for basic research on computational mathematics and the development of novel applications of mathematics for both IBM and its clients.

• Jeffrey A Nichols, Ph.D. and Associate Laboratory Director for Oak Ridge National Laboratory's Computing and Computational Sciences. Jeff oversees the Department of Energy's (DOE) National Center for Computational Sciences (NCCS), the site of the Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility (OLCF), which delivers state-of-the-art scientific research and technological innovations. The OLCF is home to Summit, the nation's most powerful computing resource. Nichols also leads ORNL's agenda in advanced high-performance computing in priority areas such as materials science, fusion energy, and health data, as well as the laboratory's quantum computing and artificial intelligence initiatives.

1. David A. Weitz, Ph.D. and Mallinckrodt Professor of Physics & Applied Physics and professor of Systems Biology at Harvard University. David is the co-director of the BASF Advanced Research Initiative at Harvard, co-director of the Harvard Kavli Institute for Bionano Science & Technology, and director of the Harvard Materials Research Science & Engineering Center.

If you are interested in joining CATALOG's Advisory Board, please contact David Turek.

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