GenProt installs large server farm for protein research

GeneProt plans to obtain the total protein profile of healthy and diseased fluids or tissues by studying the development of an organism, maturation of cell types and tissues and progression of diseases as they vary over time. The results will be used to fast-track target identification in order to speed development of new products by pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies.

The Geneva facility has 51 of the most advanced mass spectrometers running around the clock searching for proteins that could become tomorrow's blockbuster agents, Dr. Hochstrasser notes. "The speed at which we work, and the depth to which we analyse naturally occurring proteins in health and disease, should shorten the drug discovery lifecycle and significantly reduce the time it takes to get a final product to market," added Dr. Hochstrasser.

Backed by an equity investment from Compaq, GeneProt is using enterprise-class Compaq products such as its industry-leading AlphaServer systems, the technology that helped map the first draft of the human genome, along with Compaq's Tru64 UNIX operating system. GeneProt chose Compaq's StorageWorks system to accommodate the immense storage and retrieval challenges posed by the company's ambitious proteomics undertaking.

The supercomputing technology includes 1,420 Compaq Alpha-based, Tru64 UNIX computer processors, each of which is capable of performing more than a billion sequence comparisons per hour, while offering increased sensitivity and performance in sequence similarity analysis.

Compaq's equity investment in GeneProt is managed as part of Compaq's US$100 million Genomics Investment Program unveiled last September. The programme is designed to promote the development of life sciences companies through financial support and access to its high-performance AlphaServer systems, Tru64 UNIX and StorageWorks storage systems for use in genomics, proteomics and other related research activities.

GeneProt(TM) brings together experts in proteomics and bioinformatics to accelerate therapeutic drug discovery and improve its quality. In April 2001, GeneProt opened the world's first large-scale proteomic discovery and production facility in Geneva, Switzerland. Equipped with 51 state-of-the-art mass spectrometers and some of the most advanced bioinformatic and computing data-storage technologies, GeneProt will identify and, when appropriate, synthesise commercially viable novel therapeutics proteins, drug targets and biomarkers. GeneProt will significantly shorten the time required for the discovery and development of novel therapeutic agents.

GeneProt's partners include leading pharmaceutical and technology companies and academic and scientific institutions such as Novartis, Compaq, Bruker Daltonics and the Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics. The company will pursue additional partnerships with organisations that can bring value to GeneProt's unique offerings in proteomics discovery and production. These partnerships represent significant revenue sources for both the short and the long term