Accelrys Offers Free Version of Pipeline Pilot for Academics
Accelrys said this week it is offering a version of its SciTegic “scientific operating system” to academics for free in order to promote the creation of software applications that can be shared between the academic and commercial communities.
The free release of SciTegic Pipeline Pilot “Student Edition” should enable those academic groups working closely with industry partners to share data more quickly and efficiently, the company said.
Accelrys said it will host a free library on its community website to promote the sharing of scientific applications between academia and industry.
Further information on the free version of the software is available here.
UAB to Use Dell Cluster for Neurological Research
Dell said this week that it is providing the compute power for a University of Alabama at Birmingham study on neurological disorders such as Parkinson’s disease, the company said.
UAB recently bought a 70-node, 280-core high-performance computing cluster from Dell for performing molecular dynamics and quantum mechanics calculations.
Besides efforts to alleviate Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s diseases, the cluster will be used for drug design using bioinformatics and cheminformatics, Dell said.
Financial terms of the agreement were not provided.
Pfizer and Entelos to Expand Cardiovascular PhysioLab Platform Research
Entelos said this week that Pfizer has agreed to expand a research collaboration based on the Entelos Cardiovascular PhysioLab platform.
The expanded research will focus on identifying biomarkers and interpretations of clinical study data, Entelos said.
Financial terms were not disclosed.
The news follows a deal announced earlier this month in which Pfizer Ireland Pharmaceuticals, a subsidiary of the pharmaceutical firm, agreed to purchase 2,516,299 Entelos common shares at 29.1 pence per share for a total investment of £732,243 ($1.5 million) [BioInform 11-02-07].
The Entelos Cardiovascular PhysioLab platform represents biological mechanisms that underlie serious cardiovascular conditions in multiple patient types. The platform mathematically represents the relative contribution of circulating lipids, systemic inflammation, and local vessel inflammation to the progression of atherosclerosis.
BMS Extends Licensing Agreement for Aureus Databases
Paris-based Aureus Pharma said this week that Bristol-Myers Squibb has renewed its license for its AurScope GPCR database, and has also licensed its AurScope Kinase and Ion Channel Knowledge databases.
Aureus’ target-family-based AurScope databases hold quantitative biological activity data mined from the scientific literature.
BMS and Aureus Pharma have been license partners since 2002.
Financial terms of the license were not disclosed.
Japanese Proteomics Initiative to Use Genedata's Expressionist Software
A Japan-based proteomics collaboration will use Genedata’s software in its search for metastatic biomarkers, the company said this week.
The collaborators, including Tokyo Medical University, AMR, and Leica Microsystems, will use the Genedata Expressionist software to handle data from mass-spectrometry proteomics research, Genedata said.
The project is focused on finding and validating new protein drug targets using lung and endocrine carcinoma samples taken from formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded tissue collections.
Financial terms of the agreement were not released.
RTI Lands up to $6.8M NHGRI Grant to Create Population Genomics Standards
Research Triangle Institute International has received a grant for up to $6.8 million from the National Human Genome Research Institute to develop standards for large genome-wide association and epidemiological studies, RTI said this week.
RTI said the three-year project, called PhenX, will use population-based genomics studies initially to focus on cardiovascular, neurologic, endocrinologic, and renal disorders.
“In recent years, there have been many good studies looking at the relationship between genetics and various health conditions and diseases," Carol Hamilton, RTI’s director of bioinformatics, said in a statement. "Unfortunately, the lack of standard measures in these studies often does not allow researchers to combine or compare their findings.”
Hamilton said the goal of the project is to develop standards that will help integrate population-based studies with smaller, complementary studies in ways that enable researchers to better understand genetics and environmental factors.
BioDiscovery Integrates Nexus CGH Software With Illumina's BeadStudio
BioDiscovery said this week that it has integrated its Nexus CGH copy number-analysis software with Illumina’s BeadStudio software.
BioDiscovery said it collaborated with Illumina under the Illumina Connect bioinformatics initiative to create an interface that will allow BeadStudio customers to process their data in Nexus CGH, a platform-independent software package for identifying regions of chromosomal gain and loss in a population.
Illumina launched the Illumina Connect program in May to give customers access to third-party bioinformatics software for processing Illumina array data [BioInform 05-04-07].
OHSU's Microarray Core Facility Licenses GeneGo's Software Suite
Oregon Health and Science University has licensed several of GeneGo’s data-analysis software platforms for use in its Affymetrix Microarray Core facility, GeneGo said this week.
Under the agreement, the OHSU microarray facility will use GeneGo’s MetaCore for pathways analysis, its MapEditor for pathway editing and communications, and its MetaLink for adding interactions to MetaCore-curated pathways.
The microarray facility provides RNA expression profiling and DNA variation analysis services using Affy’s GeneChip oligonucleotide arrays.
Financial terms of the agreement were not released.