San Diego, CA - January 7, 2002 - GeneFormatics, Inc., an innovator in the field of structural
proteomics, today announced a collaborative partnership with
Bristol-Myers Squibb Company to jointly advance the development of nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR)
software for the automated, high throughput
Determination of 3-D protein structures derived from NMR data. This partnership marks the second agreement between the two companies, and involves a cross-license of the parties' respective analytical NMR software. In July 2000, GeneFormatics and Bristol-Myers Squibb entered into an Alliance Research Agreement to evaluate the biological significance of potential therapeutic targets using GeneFormatics' computational Fuzzy Functional Form™ (FFF™) platform technology to elucidate protein function and structure.
In their new partnership, GeneFormatics and Bristol-Myers Squibb will jointly develop improved NMR software technology to meet the demands that high-throughput drug discovery makes on the process of determining 3-D protein structures from NMR data. Bristol-Myers Squibb will gain access to GeneFormatics' accelerated
NMR spectroscopy technology and in return, GeneFormatics will receive rights to Bristol-Myers Squibb's proprietary analytical NMR technology.
NMR spectroscopy has long been a powerful tool for gathering information on and characterizing protein structures for the advancement of drug discovery. However, traditional approaches to
protein analysis by NMR methods are slow and resource intensive. Automation of NMR data acquisition and analysis using GeneFormatics' proprietary NMR methods and software, AutoAssign™ and AutoStructure™, developed by Professor Gaetano Montelione of the Center for Advanced
biotechnology at
Rutgers University and a co-founder of GeneFormatics, significantly accelerates this process.
GeneFormatics' "Function First" Approach to Proteomics
GeneFormatics is transforming structural proteomics by employing a unique and cost-effective "function first" approach to protein analysis. Using a combination of proprietary computational and experimental technologies, GeneFormatics' "function first" approach identifies the functions of proteins before using resource-intensive methods to determine the high-resolution structures. This integrated approach allows GeneFormatics to prioritize the proteins of greatest interest, generating valuable information, such as biochemical function,
protein structure and identification of lead compounds to accelerate drug discovery.
GeneFormatics' proprietary in silico technologies include software for rapidly generating 3-D structural representations of protein sequences. These structures can then be analyzed using the Company's unique Fuzzy Functional Form™ (FFF™) technology. FFFs are used to assign structure-correlated functions, as well as to identify the functional site and amino acid constituents in the protein that make up such a site. Armed with this information, GeneFormatics and its partners can then rationally allocate experimental resources (e.g., assays, NMR spectroscopy, and X-ray crystallography) to those proteins of greatest interest.