Univ. of Florida, Seattle-based Institute for Systems Biology and Queensland University in Australia become latest users of DigitalGENOME

CAMBRIDGE, Mass., Nov. 19, 2001- MolecularWare Inc., an emerging bioinformatics company, continues the international market rollout of its DigitalGENOMEÔ software with today’s announcement that three well-known research facilities - the Institute for Systems Biology, based in Seattle, the University of Florida, located in Gainsville, Fla. and Queensland University, located in Brisbane, Australia - are now using DigitalGENOME software to more effectively manage their laboratory research data. Terms of the purchases were not disclosed.
      MolecularWare’s DigitalGENOME suite of software products streamlines the capture and analysis of mission-critical data from high-throughput research platforms. DigitalGENOME enables effective management of the staggering flow of information from genomics- and proteomics-related research, allowing scientists to receive massive quantities of data from various heterogeneous high-throughput instruments (such as liquid handling robots, microarraying robots, and microarray biochip readers) that have traditionally been next-to-impossible to capture automatically.
      "We are very happy with MolecularWare’s DigitalGENOME software, as it has literally saved us weeks worth of image processing," said David Hume, Deputy Director, Institute for Molecular Bioscience at the University of Queensland in Australia. "A 20 thousand spot image, which in the past required several days to fully process, can now be computed in approximately 30 minutes.”
      "Our number one concern in extracting microarray feature data from cDNA microarrays is the length of time associated with aligning the spots with the feature mask,” said Richard A. McIndoe, Ph.D., Director of Bioinformatics, National Institute of Diabetes, Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) Biotechnology Center, University of Florida. “A number of software packages claim they can "automatically" find the spots, but from our assessment, all but the DigitalGENOME fall short of this claim. The software from MolecularWare does an outstanding job of automatically finding spots."
      The Institute for Systems Biology, University of Florida and Queensland University are three of the world’s premier research institutions, and we are pleased that they have elected to use our DigitalGENOME software,” said Richard P. Kivel, chief executive officer of MolecularWare. “With the software now installed and fully operational, the laboratories at both of these facilities are now able to more effectively manage and quickly analyze the tremendous volumes of data being generated through their research.
      “These purchases are the latest in a flurry of activity demonstrating commercial viability for DigitalGENOME,” added Kivel. “We have recently entered into re-seller relationships with two of the world’s leading research laboratory suppliers: Applied Precision and another well-known industry giant that will be announced shortly. We anticipate increasing our rollout in the coming months.
      The Institute for Systems Biology was founded to play a vital role in shaping the future of biology and medicine, uniting specialists from varied fields to create the methods and technologies researchers need for the 21st Century. The Institute's mission is to carry out a new approach to biology termed systems biology and to develop the tools necessary for these pioneering approaches. The Institute will initially focus on systems approaches to the immune system; the correlation of genomic variability with physiology and disease predisposition; the detailed analysis of a model micro-organism; and the study of diseases such as cancer, heart disease and auto-immunity.
      The Institute for Molecular Bioscience (IMB) at the University of Queensland is a national research and development initiative of The University and the Queensland and Commonwealth Governments, based at the University's St Lucia Campus in Brisbane, Australia. The Institute has a multidisciplinary environment with research divisions encompassing genomics and bioinformatics, genetics and developmental biology, cell biology, structural biology, biological chemistry and molecular design. When completed in 2002, the IMB will be the largest, most innovative and integrated biological and biotechnology research environment in Australia. The IMB will establish Brisbane as a center of excellence in molecular biosciences and be a major hub for bioindustries in the Asia-Pacific region.
      At the University of Florida, The NIDDK has committed to establishing biotechnology centers to make comprehensive gene expression technologies widely available to researchers working in areas supported by NIDDK. These centers provide genomic profiling resources to investigators working in research areas within the NIDDK mission. These individual centers interact as a consortium to provide a comprehensive, supportive and consistent environment for the development of genomic tools for the study of NIDDK-related conditions.
      MolecularWare is a bioinformatics company whose mission is to create software that forges a link between biotechnology researchers and the data generated from complex experiments taking place around the world. Drug-discovery research represents the best initial market for the Company’s products, due to recent adoption of cutting-edge automated research hardware and the technical sophistication of end-users. The subsequent integration of workflow management and knowledge management made possible by MolecularWare is expected to usher in a whole new era of molecular medicine, as vast amounts of information gleaned from genomics research is readily transformed into diagnostic strategies that predict and prevent disease.
     

Contacts: Richard P. Kivel, CEO, MolecularWare Inc.,