A major challenge in gene research is drawing meaning from the huge amounts of genomic data generated in experiments. As bioinformatics firms develop products to aid in analyses of such data, Ingenuity Systems is coming to market with a tool that is designed to take some of the complexity out of gene-expression data analytics.
The Redwood City, CA-based firm says that the tool, called iReport, aims to give bench scientists data on gene experiments that can help them quickly pinpoint genes of interest. The informatics firm is giving 5,000 scientists free use of the tool, which will provide analyses on microarray gene expression data, with several other versions for other types of "omics" data to soon follow, according to the company's release. The tool requires none of the complex software, informatics training and statistical know-how of current products.
"The easy, interactive tools in iReport helped me quickly identify interesting new target genes from my microarray experiment for follow-up," Jun Yang, an instructor at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, said in a statement. "The pathway information and literature references in iReport gave me a lot of confidence in my results, and helped me easily understand the biological role of the genes I was looking at."
- here's the release
- see Bio-IT World's report