Technology
Digital platform for tracing DNA of rare species, pathogens in environment comes to Canada
UC Santa Cruz’s eDNA Explorer secures $1 million to bring ecosystem-assessment tool to British Columbia
A CALeDNA research team at San Felipe Lake collects sediment to search for DNA from plants and animals pre-European arrival for a project hosted on eDNA Explorer. (Photo by Sean Johnson)
Key takeaways
- Environmental DNA, or eDNA, allow people to identify pathogens, rare species, and assess ecosystem health with the use of genomics technologies such as eDNA Explorer, an online tool that began as a research project at UC Santa Cruz.
- Since November 2023, eDNA Explorer has helped organizations run studies to inform restoration and conservation efforts, public health studies, and other vital land and water management projects.
- eDNA Explorer has received $1.1 million (USD) from Genome British Columbia’s Translation and Innovation Fund to expand into the province and build new tools that will help people learn from eDNA data.
A genomics startup that began as a research project at the University of California, Santa Cruz, to allow people to identify pathogens, rare species, and assess ecosystem health by detecting and analyzing trace genetic material left behind in the natural environment has won funding to expand into Canada and raise more awareness about the power of eDNA to understand our living world.
Short for environmental DNA, eDNA allows scientists and communities to detect and track species without needing to see them directly, offering a more efficient way to study ecosystems. eDNA can also track health and ecological signals without relying on invasive testing. The company that spun out of UC Santa Cruz to get the genomics technology that was built on campus out into the world is eDNA Explorer, and Rachel Meyer, an adjunct associate professor of ecology and evolutionary biology, is the startup’s chief science officer.
“This support will connect the eDNA map of nature and diverse data users from California to British Columbia, enabling better modeling of biodiversity and unlocking nature-positive economic opportunities,” Meyer said. “I’m excited to help drive the development of ethical machine learning insight tools that are built with the U.S. and Canada—and the world can use.”
A cutting-edge conservation tool
On June 5, the Canadian nonprofit Genome British Columbia (Genome BC), which has worked to grow a world-class life sciences sector in the province for the past 25 years, announced that eDNA Explorer has received $1.5 million Canadian dollars (approximately $1.1 million USD) from Genome BC’s Translation and Innovation Fund to launch eDNA Explorer Canada and build new tools that will help people learn from eDNA data.
The eDNA Explorer team will leverage the software platform built and refined in California, which Meyer describes as a powerful, easy-to-use “magnifying glass” that allows anyone to understand, evaluate, and collaborate around all the hidden life in an ecosystem. Since November 2023, eDNA Explorer has helped organizations run eDNA studies to inform restoration and conservation efforts, public health studies, and other vital land and water management projects.
eDNA Explorer has worked with a long list of agencies in the United States and abroad, including the Los Angeles Department of Sanitation and Environment, Portland Clean Water Services, National Park Service, California Department of Fish and Wildlife, AfricanParks, and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The startup has also attracted interest from international corporations such as Zulu Ecosystems and Chevron.
“By offering easy to use tools for people to analyze and collaborate on eDNA data, we aim to remove the barriers to using eDNA for making informed ecosystem management and restoration decisions,” said Julie Stanford, CEO of Mountain View-based eDNA Explorer. “We hope that this platform will increase the confidence in eDNA as a tool for understanding our living world.”
eDNA Explorer Canada will focus on biodiversity monitoring with a platform tailored to meet the country’s environmental standards and sovereignty needs, ensuring data is reliable and legally compliant. The goal is to turn raw data into actionable insights that drive environmental protection and restoration efforts, building on existing relationships with indigenous and government agencies established through the iTrackDNA project, which in 2021 and 2023 established Canada’s national eDNA standards.
The investment in eDNA Explorer and other projects that were announced by Genome BC on World Environment Day are intended to highlight British Columbia’s leadership in leveraging genomics to address pressing environmental and health challenges, particularly in remote and indigenous communities. eDNA Explorer Canada is being led by Meyer and Caren Helbing, a professor of biochemistry and microbiology at the University of Victoria.
Growing support and demand for eDNA insights
The GenomeBC Funds are matched by $1.6 million in co-funding from projects to UC Santa Cruz’s CALeDNA program and eDNA Explorer. This includes $175,000 from the National Park Service to assess stream health in Alaska, where integration with Canadian data on the eDNA Explorer will co-benefit all Pacific coast managers. Co-funding from the Center for Coastal Climate Resilience (CCCR) will enable four workshops focused on using eDNA in risk modeling for coastal health and agriculture, aquaculture, forestry, and natural resource extraction.
These workshops, which Meyer is especially excited about, will be held across the United States and Canada in collaboration with the Nature Tech Collective to educate corporate executives such as insurers, economists, and environmental consultants who do risk modeling. The workshops will generate open materials on how to use eDNA in risk and resilience modeling, specifically for modeling effects of economic activities on coastal habitats. The workshops will run in Fall 2024 and involve UC Santa Cruz’s Genomics Institute, Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, and CCCR, which will contribute use cases to test.
eDNA Explorer was launched in 2023 by CALeDNA, a UC-wide consortium project that serves as eDNA Explorer’s parent organization. Meyer directs CALeDNA and is an affiliate of the Genomics Institute and UC Santa Cruz’s Paleogenomics Lab.