Cerno Licenses Mass Spec Analysis Software to Two Chinese Research Organizations
Mass spectrometry software provider Cerno Bioscience said this week that it has signed licensing agreements with two Chinese research institutes: The Chinese Academy of Sciences and Egret Pharma.
Researchers with the Chinese Academy of Sciences will use Cerno's Massworks software to identify metabolites.
Egret Pharma will use the company’s software to identify target compounds, impurities, and synthesis byproducts while developing drugs.
The company did not disclose financial terms for the deals.
NCI Purchases Site License for Agilent’s Bioinformatics Tools
Agilent Technologies said this week that the National Cancer Institute has purchased a site license for several of its bioinformatics software packages.
Under the agreement, NCI intramural program researchers will have access to Gilent GeneSpring GX for gene expression, Agilent CGH Analytics for comparative genomic hybridization studies, Agilent Chip Analytics for chromatin immunoprecipitation-on-chip data, and GeneSpring GT for genotyping and SNP analysis.
Financial terms of the agreement were not provided.
AstraZeneca Signs Global License for Ingenuity's IPA Software
Ingenuity Systems said this week that AstraZeneca has signed a global licensing agreement for its IPA pathway analysis platform.
Adriano Henney, director of discovery enabling capabilities and sciences at AstraZeneca, said in a statement that the company opted for IPA after testing several platforms across seven AstraZeneca sites in three countries for the past year.
According to Ingenuity, IPA supports data analysis for all high-throughput analysis platforms and can be used for toxicology, pharmacogenomics, and biomarker validation.
Financial terms were not disclosed.
Premier Biosoft to Co-Develop MLPA Bioinformatics Software with MRC-Holland
Premier Biosoft said this week that it is partnering with MRC-Holland to co-develop software related to MRC’s MLPA (Multiplex Ligation-dependent Probe Amplification) technology for detecting copy number changes in the genome.
The partnership is expected to help MLPA users design custom oligos for genes that do not have kits available. According to the companies, no such design tool currently exists.
Spain’s ProteoRed Network Chooses GeneBio’s Phenyx as ‘Default’ Protein ID Software
Geneva Bioinformatics said this week that ProteoRed, Spain’s National Proteomics Network, will use its Phenyx software as its “default” protein identification package.
The software will be installed on an SGI cluster at the National Center for Biotechnology in Madrid.
Members of ProteoRed, which includes more than 20 Spanish research institutions, will have access to this server in order to perform proteomics research.
Juan Pablo Albar, general coordinator of ProteoRed, said in a statement that the initiative’s goal “is to offer our network a high performance computing server that can handle the various demands and necessities inherent in a much-used proteomics cluster.”
He added that Phenyx “performed admirably” in a test on the network’s IT architecture.
University of Manchester Opens Interdisciplinary Biology Research Facility
The University of Manchester this week opened the Manchester Interdisciplinary Biocenter, a £38 million ($72 million) facility that will house more than 600 researchers from a wide range of disciplines to address challenges in “quantitative, interdisciplinary bioscience.”
“The idea behind the institute is to create a new type of research environment where people from different disciplines learn to speak each other’s language,” said John McCarthy, MIB director, in a statement.
The MIB will host several research centers, including the £6 million Manchester Center for Integrative Systems Biology; the UK Center of Excellence in Biocatalysis, Biotransformations and Biocatalytic Manufacture; and the National Center for Text-Mining.
Thermo Electron Opens Informatics Support Center in Saudi Arabia
Thermo Electron said this week that it has opened a customer support center for its informatics software and services in Dammam, in the Eastern province of Saudi Arabia.
The new helpdesk, which will offer local language technical assistance, has been developed in collaboration with the Yusuf Bin Ahmed Kanoo group, Thermo’s partner in the region.