Packard Biochip Technologies is planning to release ArrayInformatics, a new microarray database and visualization software package, in the first week of November. The package is “focused on storing, handling, and analyzing gene expression microarray data,” said Dile Holton, Packard’s product manager for ArrayInformatics. The database will enable users to input data directly from scanners and readers, and organize and store it in large volumes, according to Holton. The visualization tools package will allow users to do bar graphs, scatterplots, and cluster image mapping, giving them several choices as to the type of analysis they would like to do. The software is to be priced so it is affordable to individual laboratories, a figure that Holton puts somewhere in the neighborhood of $10,000 to $40,000.
Qiagen subsidiary Operon Technologies has upgraded its human Array-Ready Oligo Set, adding 2,688 new 70-mer oligonucleotides derived from the UniGene database. The set now includes a total of 16,659 genes.
Operon has also begun to offer its human, yeast, mouse, malaria, and tuberculosis Array-Ready Oligo Sets in concentrations of 600 picomol delivered in 384-well plates, and 2,000 picomol provided in 96-well plates.
The company said it plans to upgrade its mouse Array-Ready Oligo Set before the end of the year, and to make available a rat Array-Ready Oligo Set, with 4,273 oligonucleotides obtained from the UniGene database.
InforMax, of Rockville, Md., has released Xpression NTI, a desktop gene expression data analysis software package. Xpression NTI includes filtering, sorting, and clustering algorithms for analysis of microarray expression experiments; and also includes parameterization and profiling methods for data analysis. The software displays data graphically in order to facilitate discovery of gene expression patterns.
“With the widespread adoption of microarray expression technology across our customer base of 1,800 organizations, we have responded to their need for a powerful desktop analysis tool to compliment our Vector NTI Suite,” InforMax CEO Alex Titomirov said in a statement.