At the American Society of Human Genetics (ASHG) 2025 Annual Meeting, Plasmidsaurus will unveil its fastest and most accessible service yet: ultrafast RNA-Seq for $80 ($50 for academic labs), with analyzed data available in as little as three days. Building on its “sequence while you sleep” promise from plasmid, AAV, genomes and microbiome sequencing, they are bringing transcriptomics to more scientists than ever. With Plasmidsaurus RNA-Seq, scientists can ship cells at room temperature, skip library prep, and view results directly online. What once took weeks can now be done in just a few days.

Plasmidsaurus’s new RNA-Seq service aims to make gene expression data as easy as plasmid verification. At $80 per sample ($50 for academic users) and with results as fast as three days, it will reset expectations for how fast and affordable RNA-Seq can be. For researchers and biotech startups, this means quicker insight into cellular behavior and more rapid design-build-test-learn cycles.

The Plasmidsaurus story began when co-founder and CEO Mark Budde was developing cell therapies in the Elowitz Lab at Caltech. “I realized that Sanger sequencing was the bottleneck to scaling our workflows,” Budde recalls. “The nanopore sequencing method I developed to replace it was working so well for us that I let everyone on campus try it out. After that, everyone else in my department wanted their plasmids sequenced this way too. There’s so much need for better sequencing, and no one was making things for scientists, so I decided someone had to.” That mission of building tools for scientists still defines Plasmidsaurus today.

From one nanopore sequencer at Caltech to a worldwide network, Plasmidsaurus has grown rapidly. The company now operates across five continents with more than 1,000 dropboxes. Its reputation for reliability and transparency has made it a trusted partner for labs, startups, and major biotechs that need fast, high-quality data.

The RNA-Seq platform brings Plasmidsaurus’s proven logistics and user experience to Illumina-based transcriptomics. Researchers can ship cells or tissue at room temperature in Zymo DNA/RNA Shield, removing the need for cold shipping or expensive prep. Samples are processed automatically, and results appear in easy-to-use online tools that let users compare expression profiles, explore gene sets, and create publication-ready figures without coding. There are no minimums, quotes, or setup delays, so researchers can run quick checks or pilot studies with ease.

This builds on Plasmidsaurus’s previous streak of successful releases. Its AAV genome sequencing delivers full-length reads in three days, while the microbiome amplicon service provides overnight species-level results. Independent tests have shown its plasmid sequencing to outperform competitors in both speed and accuracy. Together, these successes have made Plasmidsaurus a benchmark for sequencing-as-a-service that now includes RNA-Seq.

Interest in the new service has been overwhelming. “The demand that we’ve been seeing so far is unlike anything I’ve ever seen,” Budde says. “We have months of scaling hell ahead of us.” Still, he emphasizes the company’s focus remains the same: making it simple to get reliable, high-quality insights, even from imperfect samples. Automation, software design, and 24-hour operations are key to keeping pace with demand.

Plasmidsaurus plans to build on this momentum with more product launches and continued improvements to its software tools. “We’ll be announcing new products over the next few months,” Budde adds, “we started working on RNA-Seq in earnest about five months ago”. The RNA-Seq rollout moves Plasmidsaurus closer to its long-term vision: making sequencing as fast and intuitive as sending an email.

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