Who Says St. Louis Isn’t Home to Fun Start-Ups
A certain St. Louis Post-Dispatch columnist has said that as a city, St. Louis possesses an inferiority complex that prevents us from aggressively pursuing – and winning – things that are coveted by other cities. Corporate headquarters. Cultural institutions. Sports teams. One other thing that St. Louis is notable for missing out on is venture capital funding, which is generally required to lure healthy and interesting start-up companies to any town (or enable them to stay there).
But at least one emerging St. Louis company is not only making a mark in the Midwest. They are getting national (and international) press for a proprietary technology that even Ozzy Osbourne is interested in.
Cofactor Genomics LLC, an 8-person, $2.5 million company based in St. Louis, is working with two other companies to create a genetic map of the eccentric and hard-living rocker, and then interpret the results to provide insight into Ozzy’s genetics and ancestry.
The results of the project, which began when Ozzy Osborne approached a company called Knome to provide the genetic interpretation and data analysis, will be featured in the Prince of Darkness’s new health column in The Times of London. Cofactor will begin the gene sequencing process within the next two months, and the Knome’s data analysis will take several more months to complete.
Osbourne approached Knome because of its recent work interpreting the genetic maps of a dozen high-profile celebrities for the PBS Series Faces of America. According to Cofactor’s President and Chief Technology Office, Dr. Jarret Glasscock, the genetic analysis may, in part, explain how Ozzy Osbourne has been able to survive a life of sex, drugs, rock & roll, and occasional encounters with bats.
For now, the attention on Cofactor should cause excitement not just for that company, but for all new companies hoping to find the one bit of notariety that propels their company from start-up to stability.
“As more celebrities get involved, (genome sequencing) will become more mainstream,” Glasscock said in the St. Louis Business Journal on June 28. “As prices continue to fall and the technology continue to progress — over last four years, we have made huge leaps and bounds — this will become very common.”
If genome sequencing does indeed become common, we can thank a rather uncommon rocker for helping one local company make its mark early.