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Gladstone Institutes, Alitora to Co-Develop Search Software for Drug Discovery

NEW YORK (GenomeWeb News) - The J. David Gladstone Institutes said this week that is its partnering with software firm Alitora Systems to develop a semantic search system targeted at drug discovery.

Under the terms of the collaboration, Gladstone will modify Alitora Systems' semantic technology for biotechnology and pharmaceutical discovery and development.

Alitora's semantic search technology finds information based on "relevant meaning, not just keywords," which could help researchers uncover information that might otherwise be lost, Gladstone said.

"Throw-away data in one area of research may be a critical factor in another," said Bruce Conklin, a senior investigator at the Gladstone Institute of Cardiovascular Disease. "These tools can be used to find intersections in science that can significantly improve the pace of discovery."

As part of the collaboration, Conklin will join Alitora's advisory board and Alex Pico, a Gladstone bioinformatics software engineer, will join the company as chief science officer.

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