Celera Jobs and Profile

Our History

Celera was founded in 1998 with the mission to sequence the human genome and provide clients with early access to the resulting data. Using state-of-the art sequencing technology supplied by Applied Biosystems and sophisticated internally-developed informatics, Celera pioneered the application of “shotgun” sequencing. While this “shotgun” approach was widely criticized at the time, it has subsequently become a standard method for sequencing complex organisms that is now broadly accepted and routinely used by many of the same scientists who originally scorned the approach. Scores of organisms have now been sequenced using the Celera “shotgun” method.

Celera went on to build a successful database business, providing custom search tools and software that enabled dozens of pharmaceutical companies and hundreds of academic, government and biotech clients to use its findings in biological research. While the Celera database business ultimately became profitable, it was clear by 2000 that this was not a sustaining business model, as the public effort caught up and provided free access to genome sequences.

Celera moved on - both scientifically and commercially. Scientifically, we recognized that understanding complex conditions like Alzheimer’s and cardiovascular disease required a greater understanding of human genetic variability and therefore embarked upon the Applera Genomics Initiative. This involved re-sequencing the genes and regulatory regions of 39 people to develop a catalog of human variation – focused on the parts of the genome that code proteins and are therefore most likely to impact human health. This effort resulted in the identification of over 40,000 novel functional SNPs (single nucleotide polymorphisms). This work has become a basis for many of the new genetic tests that Celera is developing.

In January of 2006, Celera announced our intention to partner our small molecule drug programs and acquired full rights to Celera Diagnostics, which had previously been run as a joint venture with Applied Biosystems.

Today, Celera is a healthcare company focused on personalizing disease management through diagnostic products and services.