EBioinformatics of Pleasanton, Calif., has released an upgrade to BioNavigator, its flagship bioinformatics application service. The improvements are aimed at enabling researchers who are not expert bioinformaticists to take advantage of genome and proteome analysis methods.
The company said it has improved the ease of use in BioNavigator’s protocols system, which guides users through complex bioinformatics analysis methods. The protocols component enables users to build multiple-step analyses using applications from a range of bioinformatics resources, including nucleic acid and protein sequence databases and tools for multiple sequence alignment, structural comparison, phylogenetic reconstruction, primer design, gene-finding and molecular modeling.
Other enhancements include multiple sequence alignment editing, new database searching methods, and new databases such as the Blocks+ protein database. BioNavigator also now produces reports and publication-ready output and works faster, the company said.
Biological testing technology provider Luminex of Austin announced that it will develop a database to analyze early biochemical indicators of disease using its proprietary LabMap technology, which enables proteomic arrays to be analyzed using a small amount of sample.
The project will enable the detection and treatment of diseases at earlier stages by elucidating biochemical changes detectable only in blood, said the company. In the initial phase, Luminex researchers will screen tens of thousands of blood samples to assess the role of approximately 300 components in disease.
Rosetta Inpharmatics of Kirkland, Wash., has released version 1.6 of its Resolver Expression Data Analysis System, an enterprise-wide bioinformatics solution for large-scale gene expression analysis. Enhancements include new clustering algorithms and the disclosure of elements of the system’s application programming interface. Researchers now have the ability to add proprietary clustering algorithms and gene expression platform error models as plug-ins with the Resolver software development kit. New data visualization and analysis capabilities have been added and the performance has been improved, the company said. Resolver is distributed exclusively by Agilent Technologies of Palo Alto, Calif.