The London Calling 2023 showcase stage on conservation included a four-minute recorded session that I watched tonight. Phoebe Oldach from Basecamp Research spoke about “Building a comprehensive knowledge graph of novel proteins with long-read metagenomic sequencing and global partnerships.” They began by describing the field of identifying new proteins. Oldach explained that there is a gap in knowledge of the protein landscape and a “broken link between bioeconomy and biodiversity.” They said that two-thirds of sequencing reads in NCBI come from twelve species! That is stunning. Basecamp is searching for “a global data supply chain from all biomes” and by being “biodiversity guardians participating in Biotech’s commercial successes.” Oldach explained that they have field teams and are building partner labs with people from the countries they are working with. They have over 68 (as of April 2023) expeditions in 19 countries. Oldach concluded that they are committed to finding partnerships and working with communities to learn from nature’s diversity. Oldach said that Basecamp Research is “building a global supply chain” for protein discovery through partnerships guided the Nagoya Protocol. They seem excited about capacity building and sharing their metagenomic analyses in public databases. Oldach is leading a field team and helping build labs globally. The Basecamp database is huge and growing. The long-read assemblies also provide rich information that is useful for partners. This is not the first Basecamp Research presentation I watch, and I continue learning about how this initiave builds huge databases that help expand the protein landscape for potential therapeutics.
