In 2013, Biosearch Technologies announced it has acquired a majority stake in LightSpeed Genomics, making the firm nolonger SBIR eligible. Formerly dba Solametrix, LightSpeed had been developing an optical detection technology called Synthetic Aperture Optics (SAO) for the life science and diagnostics market. In collbaoration with Biosearch a gene expression platform (StellarVision) was developed - optimized to work with Biosearch's Stellaris RNA FISH assays for detecting and quantifying single molecule RNA targets within individual cells. StellarVision could directly interrogate single cells, single molecules, and quantifies mRNA, lncRNA and viral RNA while imaging hundreds of cells with statistical significance in a single large field of view. LightSpeed's SAO technology enables massively parallelized optical detection combining coherent interferometric illumination and computational image reconstruction at ultra-high resolution. Anchored in work of the founders while at MIT, the company had developed optical detection technology for sequencing applications. In 2008 LightSpeed underwent a restructuring and secured new investors. While the firm's prototype sequencing platform successfully demonstrated SAOâs unique imaging capability, competitive saturation in the next-gen market reduced the commercial potential. The new technology - enabled by SAO optical methodology - took precednce, principal priority of LightSpeed's technical development program."
