• May 13, 2026 Updated May 15, 2026

ChristianaCare’s Gene Editing Institute has launched DECODR, Inc., a for?profit company created to expand access to a software tool to evaluate the effectiveness of CRISPR gene editing.

The software program grew out of the Gene Editing Institute. As a standalone company, DECODR, Inc. will continue to improve and deliver its technology to researchers in academic, nonprofit and commercial settings.

“DECODR, Inc. shows how patient?focused science can lead to tools that change an entire field,” said Eric B. Kmiec, executive director and chief scientific officer, Gene Editing Institute, and CEO of DECODR, Inc. “By launching DECODR, Inc., we are making sure this technology continues to grow, improve and support discoveries that matter.”

DECODR,, short for Deconvolution of Complex DNA Repair, is software that helps scientists understand what happens to DNA after it is edited using CRISPR technology.

Gene editing creates large amounts of data but analyzing that data can be slow and confusing. DECODR changes that by quickly and accurately showing what edits occurred, including insertions, deletions, combined changes and precise DNA repairs. It works using standard sequencing data, which many labs already use, a release stated.

The program delivers results in seconds and can shorten scientific workflows from days to hours.

Research published in Scientific Reports, part of the Nature portfolio, found the tool is better suited than other software on the market for evaluating CRISPR edits in live, somatic gene editing models because it can measure DNA changes of any size.

TDECODR is used in a wide range of research and industry settings, including in cell and gene therapy development, biotechnology and gene?editing therapeutics, agricultural plant science and animal model generation in academic and translational research labs, as well as by contract research organizations and contract development and manufacturing organizations that support CRISPR programs.

More than 5,000 registered users at hundreds of universities, nonprofit research organizations and for?profit companies around the world are using the tool.

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As of March 2026, researchers have analyzed more than 1.7 million files using DECODR.

“DECODR was created to solve a very real problem for researchers who need to measure CRISPR edits accurately and at scale,” said Pawel Bialk, associate director of technology development at the Gene Editing Institute and chief technology officer at DECODR, Inc. “Seeing it independently validated in top journals and used by thousands of researchers across academia and industry, from gene therapy and biotech to agriculture and animal model development, shows that the tool is meeting a critical need and helping move the field forward.”

DECODR® was developed in 2019 when Rohan Kanchana, then a high school junior at Newark Charter School, joined the Gene Editing Institute as an intern. Working under the mentorship of Kmiec and institute scientists, Kanchana tackled a challenge in CRISPR research: slow, error?prone data analysis.

During his internship, Kanchana built the first version of the program. What started as a student project quickly became a widely used research tool through a the Gene Editing Institute.

After graduating from MIT in 2025 with a degree in physics, he returned to Delaware and now serves as chief software engineer and a director of DECODR, Inc.

Further information is available at the DECODR, Inc. website.

ChristianaCare, a nonprofit healthcare system is the state's largest employer.