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Biotech / Medical : CYTO -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Jim Oravetz who wrote (7882)	7/11/2000 1:07:17 PM
From: Jim Oravetz	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 8116

A New Day For Bioinformatics (6/28) Ronald Rosenberg c.2000 The Boston Globe With the release of the first draft of the human genome map - the deciphering of 3 billion molecules that are the blueprint of human life - information technology takes center stage. A fast-growing field known as bioinformatics uses computing to analyze the vast amount of biological, genomic and related research to make sense of things too complex for the human brain to fathom. But bioinformatics is also a bottleneck for many drug and biotech companies that can't find enough talented software engineers who combine sophisticated analysis tools with an understanding of genomics. ``We resolve the bioinformatics issue (by hiring) two people: one who understands computer science and the biologist or researcher,'' said Kenneth Fasman, vice president and global head of informatics of AstraZeneca LLC in Waltham, Mass. AstraZeneca, like other large pharmaceutical companies, uses private genomic databases, software analysis tools, molecular modeling and visualization software to ``see'' complex data sets. Nearly 50 bicoastal companies market bioinformatics to pharmaceutical and biotech companies. There are tools providers such as DoubleTwist Inc., Spotfire Inc., Molecular Simulations, Paradigm Genetics, Genomic Solutions and Rosetta Inpharmatics, along with database providers such as Incyte Pharmaceuticals, Myriad Genetics, and Celera Genomics. Within five years, bioinformatics tools and services could generate more than $2 billion in revenues, Oscar Gruss & Son, a New York investment firm, estimates. Helping drug researchers visually analyze data has enabled Spotfire of Cambridge, Mass., to sign up the top 25 pharmaceutical companies and nearly 100 biotech companies as customers. Now it plans to go to the next step. In partnership with Proteome Inc. of Beverly, Mass., Spotfire will enable researchers to compare their findings with the publicly available scientific literature. Proteome functions as a curator of biotech and genomic information, sending its staff to university and corporate research laboratories to obtain scientific papers. They look for experimental results that reveal new properties and functions of proteins, and organize those findings to provide annotated searchable gene and protein databases. Proteome sells its databases for more than $200,000 per year apiece to corporate clients including Millennium Pharmaceuticals Inc. of Cambridge, Mass., Merck & Co., SmithKline Beecham and Pfizer Inc., said James I. Garrels, Proteome's president. Spotfire and Proteome will offer their new capabilities to existing customers and smaller biotech companies. ``When I talk to prospective buyers of our software, 80 to 90 percent of them say they are still making drug discovery decisions on intuition,'' said Christopher Ahlberg, Spotfire's founder and CEO. ``They also recognize that the genome project will result in 10 to 100 times more data and the need to make decisions differently using better analysis tools.'' Cambridge Healthtech Institute of Newton announced last week that it will offer an online bioinformatics course developed by GeneEd, a San Francisco-based developer of multimedia training. The goal of the teaching program is to ``enhance the capabilities of new hires or others with limited experience'' in bioinformatics, said Phillips Kuhl, president of Cambridge Healthtech. Beyond online training programs, fewer than 10 universities offer bioinformatics courses, according to Dr. Donald Johnson, a pathologist at the Nebraska University Medical Center. He estimated there are about 60,000 jobs available to scientists and managers versed in bioinformatics. (The Boston Globe Web site is at boston.com