LA JOLLA, Calif.--GeneForm-atics has acquired exclusive worldwide technology rights for a group of protein function identification algorithms invented at the Scripps Research Institute. These proprietary methods will be used to provide biologically relevant structure-based function predictions for genomic sequences for GeneFormatics' pharmaceutical and agricultural clients.
GeneFormatics descriptors of enzyme active sites, called Fuzzy Functional Forms (FFFs), will provide informatics techniques that are faster, simpler, more sensitive, and more accurate than current methods, GeneFormatics officials claimed.
"FFFs offer a significant advantage over current methods for sequence analysis and function prediction such as global sequence alignment and local sequence motif identification," said Jacquelyn Fetrow, coinventor of the technology, chief scientific officer of the company, and a former Scripps scientist. "Most of these methods are limited by the extent of the similarity between sequences of unknown and known function with the result that these methods increasingly fail as the sequence identity diverges into and beyond the twilight zone of sequence identity," Fetrow added.