NEW YORK, Dec. 3 - The National Cancer Institute has tapped First Genetic Trust to develop a bioinformatics platform that can analyze publicly available genotype and gene-expression data, GenomeWeb learned today.
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Terms of the deal call for First Genetic Trust to build for NCI's Center for Bioinformatics a tool to help researchers integrate a hodgepodge pf public and private analysis, visualization, and management tools. First Genetic Trust stressed this new platform, which also will serve to "showcase" NCICB's caBIO technology, will be based on Open Source Foundation standards and support "established standards" like MAME and MAGE.
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The partners claim the "current lack" of publicly available open-source tools for gene-expression and genotype analysis is a "serious barrier" to research, according to a statement obtained by GenomeWeb. Andrea Califano, CTO of First Genetic Trust, added the platform can help drive medical research, especially in cancer, where newly created publicly available tissue repositories might be stymied by "scarce and fragmented" analysis tools.
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No further information was provided.