Formerly dba as Network Biosystems, in 2010 the firm was renamed NetBio Inc. Later the firm's name was changed again to ANDE Inc. BY whatever name, the firm was anchored in research performed at MIT's Whitehead Institute around the emerging field of Rapid DNA Analysis. RDA enables the identification, through fragment sizing or nucleic acid sequencing, of the most informative subset of a given human or pathogen genome to allow end users to make decisions in real time. Major applications include criminal forensics, military human identification, biothreat detection, and clinical diagnostics. The firm has developed a series of enabling microfluidic and molecular biology technologies and products for sample preparation and DNA purification, rapid thermal cycling, highly multiplexed amplification, focused DNA sequencing, optical detection of DNA sequences, and nucleic acid separation and detection. The ability to rapidly identify individuals by DNA fingerprinting and to rapidly identify pathogens by DNA sequence have become urgent national needs, and NetBio's technology addresses these needs. NetBio's products have been designed for use by non-technical operators outside the laboratory, a feature that is critical to address the enormous unmet of the Rapid DNA Analysis markets.
