The Sultanate of Oman, one of the wealthiest countries per capita in the world, has licensed LabVantage's Sapphire LIMS for its regional environment and water resources laboratories, which are responsible for improving the quality of its food, water, and other environmental resources.

31 March 2006

The Chemical Abstract Service now documents more than a billion chemical properties. The database contains predicted and experimental chemical properties, chemical spectra and other information for 19 million substances. More than 981000 document records were added to the registry in 2005, 13.4 per cent more than the previous year.

31 March 2006

Massively Parallel Technologies, a provider of on-demand high-performance computing, has enhanced the performance of its BioTech Virtual Power Centers, its internet-based hubs designed for computationally intense applications. Customers can now upload and run BLAST searches against their own databases with full intellectual property protection. A private account ensures that not only is the database secured, but also that only the authorised user is able to see and access the database. In addition, customers requiring even greater levels of security and intellectual property protection will also be able to encrypt their local database.

30 March 2006

Thermo Electron has appointed Adept Scientific to supply and support Thermo's Kinetica system in the UK and Ireland, Germany and the Nordic countries. Kinetica is used for data analysis and reporting for clinical, pre-clinical, discovery, drug metabolism and drug delivery studies.

30 March 2006

Leadscope and Lhasa are collaborating to support ToxML, a public domain communication standard for chemical and toxicological data exchange. 'Scientists need to be able to move data freely between different platforms and be able to easily compare these regulatory data with their proprietary data. This standard means they will easily transfer data and will not be restricted to using software from one particular vendor,' said Loftus Lucas, CEO of Leadscope.

28 March 2006

The American Air Force Research Laboratory is developing a new supercomputer-based system to analyse the large amounts of radar data obtained from surveillance satellites for applications such as surveillance, missile warning, communications and navigation. Defence systems researchers working at the lab are using software from Interactive Supercomputing, supported by Computer Sciences Corporation, to speed up the time it takes to analyse terabytes of satellite data on high-performance computers.

'For years the military relied on radar information from land-based facilities and reconnaissance aircraft. However, they are now also using information from satellite radar systems to supplement this,' said Mark Barnell, a systems engineer from Computing Services. 'But where traditional radar images might measure 10Mb, satellite radar can easily inundate a facility with terabytes of data every day, dramatically complicating and delaying the analysis process. Satellite radar can't help military readiness if we have to wait a long time for the results of analysis.'

27 March 2006

The Distributed European Infrastructure for Supercomputing Applications (DEISA) Consortium is holding a symposium on high performance computing in Bologna, Italy, on 4 and 5 May 2006.

At the event computational scientists will be able to discuss current scientific and strategic challenges in the field of high performance computing, with particular focus on topics such as climate modelling; computational fluid mechanics; materials science; computational biology; quantum chromo-dynamics; and astronomy, cosmology, and supernova research. Further information, including registration details, can be found at www.deisa.org/symposium

27 March 2006

CD-adapco, a provider of flow and thermal simulation software and services, has joined the Design/Simulation Council, a consortium of manufacturers, suppliers and technology providers focused on improving interoperability, creating open standards, and common terminology within product development and simulation technology. The framework also allows companies to compare their processes with those of other companies, thereby accelerating their own strategic planning and making their research and development processes more efficient.

Current members of the Council include Airbus, General Motors, Ford, DaimlerChrysler, Lockheed Martin, Motorola Whirlpool and Visteon, plus technology companies such as MSC, LMS International, UGS, Engineous Software, Altair Engineering, and the Georgia Institute of Technology.

20 March 2006

Ohaus and Labtronics have renewed their collaborative partnership. Under the agreement Ohaus will integrate the latest version of Labtronics' Collect software into its laboratory weighing systems. The Collect software will allow Ohaus' scales and balances, such as the BalanceTalk product line, to be connected to other instruments and devices in the laboratory, as well as to data capturing equipment.

20 March 2006

Maxwell Technologies and Ansoft are working together to develop a model library of Maxwell's Boostcap ultra-capacitor cells and multi-cell modules for use in Ansoft's Simplorer software for computer-based design and engineering.

Ultra-capacitors are high-capacity devices for storing energy as electric charge. They can deliver bursts of high power and recharge rapidly from any energy source over many cycles. They can offer many advantages over traditional batteries, such as greater power discharge, longer lifespan, more reliable operation in high and low-temperature conditions, require less maintenance and reduce environmental issues associated with battery disposal. They can be used as alternatives to batteries in fuel-efficient hybrid-electric/internal-combustion vehicles, aerospace and industrial applications.

17 March 2006

Mathsoft Engineering and Education has sold its 5,000th managed installation of Mathcad, its mathematics calculation suite for engineers. The company now receives 75 per cent of its revenue from managed installations - installations where Mathcad is used by groups of engineers in industrial, research or academic fields - and only 25 per cent from licences for individual users. Five years ago, when Mathsoft was created in a management buyout, the company still made 75 per cent of its income from individual licences.

17 March 2006

Scientists can now predict the appearance of sunspots years into the future, by using a computer model of solar dynamics developed at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in the USA, funded by the National Science Foundation and NASA. Researchers, led by Mausumi Dikpati, built their model using data gathered during previous solar cycles, combined with helioseismology — a technique for tracking pressure waves inside the sun. Using this model they can now forecast sunspot activity for the next 20 years.

'Forecasting the solar cycle will help society anticipate solar storms,' said Paul Bellaire, programme director of NSF's division of atmospheric sciences. Charged particles thrown off in solar storms can interfere with communication satellites orbiting the Earth, and can affect power networks on the ground: scientists have suggested that the major power cuts experienced on the east coast of North America in August 2003 were ultimately caused by interference from the sun.

The computer simulation, known as the Predictive Flux-transport Dynamo Model, draws on research indicating that the evolution of sunspots is caused by currents of plasma circulating between the Sun's equator and its poles over a period of 17 to 22 years. Sunspots are areas of intense magnetic fields on the surface of the sun, usually associated with storms in the sun's hot atmosphere. These intense fields can 'snap', throwing huge amounts of energy and matter from the sun into space as solar flares.

13 March 2006

GeneGo and Genedata have integrated their computational systems, ensuring that data can be transmitted between them smoothly. The workflow supports target selection and validation as well as diagnostic and biomarker applications for genome-wide datasets.

'Today, drug discovery scientists handle very large and complicated experimental datasets,' said Julie Bryant, vice president of business development at GeneGo. 'To cope with such complexity they need a variety of analytical approaches and databases not available from any single source. Therefore, cooperation between computational biology specialists is logical and beneficial for end users.'

8 March 2006

The American Chemical Society has awarded a graduate student from the Indiana University School of Informatics a scholarship for work helping to develop computational tools for drug discovery. Xiao Dong is part of a research team led by David Wild, assistant professor of informatics. The team is developing and building a prototype of a web service and intelligent agent-based system for searching databases in the pharmaceutical industry. The team hope the system will help scientists to quickly collect the information they need in order to decide which chemical compounds are most likely to be safe, effective drugs.

Dong will be presented with the CINF-IO Informatics Scholarship for Scientific Excellence, which is sponsored by the society's Division of Chemical Information, at the 231st National Meeting of ACS in late March. IO Informatics, a Californian software company, funds the $1,000 scholarship. The School of Informatics will be given a free annual licence of the company's software as part of the award.

3 March 2006

The Mayo Clinic, a healthcare provider based in Rochester, Minnesota, is now using the Pipette Tracker Pro software from Labtronics to verify that pipettes meet the correct tolerance specifications for volume of fluid dispensed. 'Pipettes don't always receive the attention they deserve,' said Mike DeWitte, vice president of Labtronics. 'They are in fact, precision instruments that can be very important for methods and recipes that call for precision volumes.'

3 March 2006

Scripps Florida, a division of The Scripps Research Institute, is using systems from GenoLogics for lab and scientific data management for its work in biomedical science, drug discovery, and the application of research technology to the drug discovery process. Several core facilities are being set up at the centre in Palm Beach County, to support research including proteomics, cytometry, high throughput screening, micro arrays and others.

The proteomics programme at Scripps Florida is focusing on developing and applying advanced technologies in mass spectrometry-based proteomics, to answer questions on how proteins are modified by cells in certain diseases.

1 March 2006

The Bioinformatics Consortium at the University of Missouri has purchased new computing equipment from Silicon Graphics and an SGI InfiniteStorage storage area network with a capacity of 8TB. The new SGI Altixserver will enhance research in areas such as molecular dynamics, molecular modelling, protein structure prediction, and other associated activities. As well as will immediately taking over computational chemistry jobs currently being run on a slower server, the Altix will be used to help researchers studying environmental issues using satellite and GIS data.

28 February 2006

Max-Plank Institute, the German scientific research and development organisation, has renewed its partnership with NAG. Under the new, extended licence agreement, NAG will supply Max-Plank Institute with numerical libraries and compilers, which will be used for the Institute's work in areas such physics, chemistry, and materials science.

23 February 2006

ClinPhone recently concluded a series of web based seminars, titled: Demystifying the Black Box: Basic and advanced randomisation methodologies. These webcasts, attended by more than 300 biopharmaceutical experts, discussed how ClinPhone's Interactive Voice Response (IVR) and Interactive Web Response (IWR) systems could help overcome problems in clinical trials.

In a poll conducted during the ‘webinars’, more than half the respondents indicated that the biggest challenges with designing in clinical trials today is managing complicated statistical methodologies, while 35 per cent of respondents to the poll indicated another problem area was ensuring that randomisation and blinding processes are followed correctly. During the webinar, Graham Nicholls, product manager at ClinPhone, showed how ClinPhone systems could help address these concerns.

13 February 2006

AQura, the Analytical Competence Center of Degussa, has installed ACD/Labs’ tools for NMR prediction, processing, and data management across its network at its Marl Chemical Park and Wolfgang Industrial Park research facilities.

Included in the installation were systems for predicting NMR calculations, interpreting NMR data, and managing spectrographic data. The Aldrich Library of NMR data was also installed to supplement AQura’s own databases.

13 February 2006

GlaxoSmithKline has signed a long-term licence for Aureus Pharma’s AurSCOPE databases. Scientists at Glaxo’s research and development centres will have access to Aureus’ various databases, such as AurSCOPE GPCR, Ion Channel, hERG, and ADME/Drug-Drug Interactions, which contain data for both chemistry and biology. Glaxo is also the first user of the recently released AurSCOPE Kinase database. Kinase inhibitors are used in the treatment of a wide range of diseases, including cancer, chronic inflammation, metabolic disorders and others.

9 February 2006

The British Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE) has ordered a new supercomputer from American firm Cray. The new system will have a peak performance of more than 40 teraflops (trillions of calculations per seconds).

AWE provides warheads for the United Kingdom's nuclear deterrent — the trident submarines and missiles. ‘This investment will enable us to make advances on a range of scientific fronts — including weapon physics, materials science and engineering — which will underpin our continued responsibility to underwrite the safety and effectiveness of the Trident warheads in the era of the Comprehensive Test Ban,’ said Dr Brian Bowsher, director of research and applied science at AWE.

30 January 2006

LION Bioscience is working with the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) to collaborate on future product developments. Under the agreement, the EMBL will make LION’s SRS data integration platform available to all its scientists, and will provide LION with feedback and advice for future versions of the software.

30 January 2006

Computational tools developed at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory have helped scientists complete their first genome-wide screening survey for protein complexes. The article, publishing the results of the work carried out by researchers at Cellzome and EMBL, titled ‘Proteome survey reveals modularity of the yeast cell machinery’, was first published in the on-line version of the scientific journal Nature.

The researchers used a combination of mass spectrometry and bioinformatics to describe the characteristics of nearly 500 protein complexes, more than half of which were previously unknown. Scientists hope that understanding how proteins come together to form complexes, and how complexes regulate protein pathways, will eventually lean to a better understanding of the molecular basis of health and disease.

Rob Russell, Group Leader at EMBL said: ‘Cellzome has generated a data set of outstanding quality - enabling us to develop the right computational tools to discover and define new complexes. It has been a pleasure working with Cellzome on this exciting project.’

30 January 2006

Engineering firm LMS has supplied Alcatel Alenia Space Italia with a new system for testing how satellites, launch systems, and other related devices made by Alcatel react to strong vibrations. LMS Test.Lab Environmental will allow engineers at Alcatel to simulate the violent conditions of a rocket launch within the lab, so they will be able to verify whether their satellites and sensitive payloads can withstand extreme shock and vibration loading during lift-off, flight, and deployment in space.

LMS Test.Lab monitors the vibration levels of critical assembly components in real-time. The deployment of LMS systems at Alcatel includes a 64-channel vibration control system and a 24-channel structural testing system at its development site in Rome, and a 24-channel vibration control system at its installation at L’Aquila. Processing the data from a large number of channels in real time allows Alcatel to prevent over-testing of the expensive hardware and to avoid any form of damage that could cause a lengthy delay of the space mission.

19 January 2006

Forensic scientists can now carrying out post mortem examinations without cutting bodies open. The new system, called ‘virtopsy’ (virtual autopsy), developed by Silicon Graphics, combines cross sectional x-rays, called computerised tomography (CT) scans, with 3D computer visualisation, powered by Itanium 2 processors and 32Gb of main memory, to generate an interactive display of a corpse. Using this method, medical researchers can wade through the layers of the carcass and view details from any angle to better understand how someone died.

Forensic pathologists working at the US Armed Forces Institute of Pathology have used the new system to scan hundreds of bodies, including those of soldiers killed in Iraq. The results are being used to help design better body armour, and thereby enhance the safety of troops still serving.

18 January 2006

More than a third of the new pan-European gigabit network, GEANT2, is now live. The completion of the work, which represents phase one of the network, was announced at the first GEANT2 Technical Workshop, held in Cambridge (UK) from 9-13 January, and attended by more than 180 network engineers and researchers.

When completed, the network will connect 30 million users across 34 countries. It will be the largest network ever built for the European research and academic community, and will offer point-to-point services, to connect distributed research centres to projects such as CERN’s Large Hadron Collider, with high capacity links at a far lower cost than running a private network.

18 January 2006

American firm Interactive Supercomputing (ISC) has received venture capital funding for developing and marketing its Star-P software, an interactive parallel computing platform, first unveiled at the Supercomputing Show 2005. Star-P allows scientists and engineers to code algorithms and models on their desktops, using familiar mathematical software packages, and run them interactively on high-performance clusters, without having to re-program the applications for parallel processing.

ISC secured funds totalling $4.5m from a group of investment firms led by Flagship Ventures, an investment company which specialises in technology. Rock Maple Ventures and CommonAngels, a network of private investors and limited partners, joined Flagship in supporting Interactive.

Dr William Strecker, a new director at the company, and a partner at Flagship Ventures, commented: ‘There are two distinct technical computing environments: the interactive desktop, and the high-performance computing server. Star-P brings the two together, combining the best of both worlds: the interactive and high-level interface of desktop tools, and the tremendous power of HPC servers.’

17 January 2006

Genomic technologies firm Diversa is now using electronic lab notebooks for media preparations and production processes. The new ELNs, from Labtronics, interface directly with other electronic lab instruments and systems, meaning that in day-to-day operations researchers at Diversa now longer have to transcribe manually data and results from instruments, saving time and reducing the chance of errors introduced during transcription.

In addition, Diversa has also incorporated chemical inventory management into its ELN system, the NEXXIS CIM, also from Labtronics. Using this integrated system Diversa can automatically monitor and manage its use of chemicals in the development and production process.

17 January 2006

LIMS and radio chromatography specialist LabLogic Systems has won the Export Excellence category of the 2005 Business Awards in its home city of Sheffield, UK. The company's success in growing its overseas business and promoting Sheffield as a centre for scientific software helped it to beat other finalists from the area's traditional steel industries.

Exports account for 70 per cent of LabLogic's turnover. It exports mainly to the North American and European markets, and has recently started to expand its operations into Japan. Agrochemical firms, research labs, hospitals and universities use LabLogic systems, while 18 of the top 20 pharmaceutical companies use LabLogic’s software and instruments.

Speaking at the award ceremony Richard Brown, the company's managing director, said ‘On behalf of everyone at LabLogic, I am honoured to receive this award in recognition of our overseas sales. This success has been achieved through the hard work and dedication of our employees in providing quality products and unparalleled support for our customers in the pharmaceutical industry worldwide.’

10 January 2006

Tessella Support Services has completed the acquisition of software firm Analyticon. Analyticon, which produces mathematical modelling and analysis tools, is now a wholly owned subsidiary of Tessella, which specialises in scientific, technical and engineering software.

Dr Peter Townsend, commercial director of Tessella, said: ‘Analyticon’s space and defence activities will enable Tessella to diversify into new areas, while their work in pharmaceuticals allows both companies to consolidate and expand the range of services offered. I look forward with confidence to serving the needs of an expanded list of world-class clients.’

10 January 2006

AstraZeneca and InforSense have agreed a new global licensing deal. Scientists at AstraZeneca’s research facilities will use InforSense’s workflow-based integrated analytics environment, InforSense KDE, in their core drug discovery programmes.

AstraZeneca has used inforsense software since 2001. Following successful pilot installations, the new global licensing agreement expands access to InforSense KDE across AstraZeneca’s R&D divisions for integrative biology, chemistry and text mining applications.

10 January 2006

Stratagene and Strand Life Sciences have announced a strategic partnership to develop a suite of bioinformatics software tools. Stratagene will market and sell the jointly developed products, which will use Strand's avadis technology.

New software developed by the companies will offer a range of statistical tests (including multi-dimensional ANOVA and non-parametric tests), data mining tools, and visualisation features. Through Stratagene’s pre-existing strategic software partnership with Affymetrix, the software will be able to process data from Affymetrix Exon Array chips. It will be compatible with Windows, Mac OS and Linux.

10 January 2006

Chemistry software company Advanced Chemistry Development is opening a new office in the UK, which will provide technical support and software development, as well as sales, for existing and future customers. ACD supplies analytical chemistry tools to the pharmaceutical, chemical, environmental, and academic markets. The new office will also support ACD’s network of distributors through the rest of Europe.

4 January 2006

Microsoft Smart Clients for eScience has awarded $49,000 to Indiana University’s School of Informatics and Community Grid Laboratory, to help develop a prototype web-based drug discovery system. One of the main aims is to help chemists manage the huge amount of data currently being generated by research in drug discovery. ‘Currently, early-stage drug discovery is experiencing an information overload. The results from the prototype we build will make the computer do the grunt work of sorting the information for scientists,’ said Dr David Wild, assistant professor of informatics at Indiana.

The researchers, Drs David Wild and Marlon Pierce, hope that their work will help make computational chemistry and molecular modelling techniques more accessible to laboratory chemists, through desktop tools. Specifically, the research will investigate how the Microsoft .NET framework can be used to develop a web service and agent-based system for mining chemical data.

The Microsoft-funded research will be carried out alongside the School of Informatics’ work to establish the Chemical Informatics and Cyberinfrastructure Collaboratory, for the US National Institute of Health. This project seeks to exploit current and future web and grid technologies for chemical modelling, simulation, and data storage and searching.

19 December 2005

A grid-based breast cancer-screening programme, called MammoGrid, has completed its demonstration stage. Funded by the European Commission’s IST research initiative, MammoGrid was set up to create a Europe-wide database of breast cancer data to enhance diagnosis, treatment, and cancer research.

MammoGrid allows doctors and researchers access to thousands of stored mammogram images. The system lets radiologists exchange images across the grid easily, meaning it can quickly get a second, or even a third, opinion on the results of any particular mammogram. In this way it can improve the accuracy of diagnosis.

Millions of women throughout Europe undergo routine breast examinations, mammograms, each year. Mammography is a vital tool in the early detection of breast cancer, from which one in every eight women in Europe will suffer at some point. The earlier a malignant growth is detected, the greater the chance of the patient surviving.

Breast cancer is difficult to diagnose accurately. False-positive results can be stressful for the patient and may lead to painful biopsies being carried out when they are not necessary.

19 December 2005

Fakespace Systems, a subsidiary of Mechdyne, is to develop visualisation systems for the Microsystems and Engineering Sciences Applications’ MicroLab facility at the US’s Sandia National Laboratory in New Mexico. Fakespace will design, build, and install integrated imaging and display systems in the MicroLab, which houses an education centre, design centre, and a conference centre. The three centres will be networked together, allowing for meetings and seminars to be conducted between them, or even across the web.

Fakespace will also supply the MicroLab with a new digital microscope, which will be used particularly for imaging nanotechnologies. The microscope will be able to operate in full automatic mode, or can be controlled from each of the three centres. Sandia hopes the centres will be ready for use in mid-2006.

19 December 2005