IBM and Physiome Sciences announce supercomputing and biological modeling partnershipAcukland 13 August 2001 Physiome Sciences will use IBM's next-generation supercomputing technology for research on biological systems, diseases and potential drug targets. In addition, IBM will license biological modeling technology from Physiome Sciences for its internal use. Physiome Sciences and its development collaborator, the University of Auckland in New Zealand will receive two of the first shipments of the new IBM eServer POWER4-based supercomputers. The system will enable Physiome Sciences to speed up its current capability to simulate complex models of cells, tissues and organs, and simulate the behavior of diseases such as diabetes, hypertension and asthma.
"Physiome Sciences's goal is to incorporate information from protein pathways
into computerized models of cells, organs, and disease states -- laying the
infrastructure for virtual drug discovery," said Dr. Jeremy Levin, CEO of
Physiome Sciences. "Our alliance with IBM will speed this process and enhance
our technology capability to develop the leading in silico solutions."
For pharmaceutical and other biomedical researchers using Physiome Sciences's
simulation technology, the benefits will include significant time and cost
savings, and better predictions about the effects of drug candidates on animals
and humans. Users will be able to perform biological modeling that yields
proprietary, company-specific insights into drug targets and disease mechanisms.
The alliance will enable Physiome Sciences to enhance its product offerings,
which include CardioPrism(tm) and PathwayPrism(tm). These technology platforms
address critical drug discovery requirements in data integration, data analysis
and modeling, resulting in better target identification and analysis of effects
of novel drugs and drug toxicity.
"IBM's leadership in such areas as high-performance computing and research
complements Physiome Sciences's expertise in biological modeling," said Dr.
James Coffin, director, IBM Life Sciences Solutions. "Our complementary
strengths will enable researchers to draw on cutting edge technologies to
advance medical research and speed up the drug discovery process."
Through the agreement, IBM becomes Physiome Sciences's preferred information
technology supplier for high-performance computing, professional services and
data integration. In addition, IBM will license the PathwayPrism technology
from Physiome Sciences for its internal use. PathwayPrism utilizes Physiome
Sciences's revolutionary In-SioCell technology for building biological
models.
Further, IBM and Physiome Sciences will explore research collaborations to
integrate complementary technologies in such areas as pattern discovery, gene
expression analysis, and signal transduction pathways, which map biological
activities within cells. IBM also will work with Physiome Sciences to promote
open standards such as the CellML, an XML-based language to develop computer
models of cells, tissues and organs.
Designed to provide industry-leading performance for both commercial and
technical workloads, POWER4-based systems will feature ground-breaking new
technologies, such as the world's first computer chip containing two processors;
more than an order of magnitude improvement in bandwidth over today's systems;
and a new method of connecting devices that dramatically increases scalability
by combining the benefits of leading architectures for server communications.
Physiome Sciences, Inc., a privately held Princeton-based company, is a leader
in the commercial development of software tools, proprietary databases, and web
applications for simulating biological processes. This biological operating
system can be harnessed to model cells, tissues and organs, in a virtual
setting, enabling scientists to generate predictive information using their own
data. Drug developers, for example, already use Physiome's operating system and
models to predict the effects of specific drugs on animals and humans.
This greatly speeds the selection of drugs for entry into human trials. The
selection process becomes more rational and potentially increases drug quality
at an early state of development.
The CellML)language was developed as an open standard that is available free
of charge to all users. Additional information can be obtained by visiting the
CellML Web site at http://www.cellml.org.
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