ChristianaCare Spins Out DECODR for CRISPR Analysis

ChristianaCare’s Gene Editing Institute has launched DECODR, Inc., a for-profit spinout created to commercialise its CRISPR gene editing analysis software. Announced on 13 May 2026 from Wilmington, Delaware, the new company will continue developing and distributing the DECODR platform, which already has more than 5,000 registered users worldwide. The move formalises the software as a standalone commercial product rather than a tool maintained within an academic health system.

DECODR, short for Deconvolution of Complex DNA Repair, analyses Sanger sequencing data to identify the exact edits that occur after CRISPR gene editing, including insertions, deletions, combined changes and precise DNA repairs. The software delivers results in seconds and can compress workflows from days to hours compared with alternative analysis approaches. It originated in 2019 as a high school internship project by Rohan Kanchana at the Gene Editing Institute, before being formalised through a research collaboration.

As of March 2026, researchers had analysed more than 1.7 million files using DECODR across academic, nonprofit and commercial settings, including cell and gene therapy developers, agricultural biotech, animal model generation, contract research organisations and CDMOs supporting CRISPR programmes. Independent validation has been published in Scientific Reports, The CRISPR Journal and Cells. Eric Kmiec, Ph.D., executive director of the Gene Editing Institute, will serve as CEO of DECODR, Inc., with Pawel Bialk as chief technology officer and Kanchana, now an MIT physics graduate, as chief software engineer.

The DECODR spinout reflects a broader pattern of life sciences software being separated from the research institutions that built it, particularly where adoption metrics have already outgrown an academic support model. With CRISPR-based therapeutics, cell and gene therapy and agricultural editing all expanding, demand for standardised, validated edit-analysis tools is set to keep rising, and DECODR enters that market with a significant installed-base advantage.