Applied Biosystems Announces Enhancements To Its Online Research Offerings To Better Enable Genetic Variation And Disease Association Studies

FOSTER CITY, CA – Applied Biosystems Group (NYSE:ABI), an Applera Corporation business, today announced a series of enhancements to its two online research resources, the free myScienceSM research environment within the Applied Biosystems Web site and the subscription-based Celera Discovery System™ (CDS) online platform.

These enhancements now give users the ability to design and order custom SNPlex™ genotyping assays to compare genetic differences and identify disease-associated genes. Researchers can now also search for and order the recently released VariantSEQr™ resequencing product sets to identify specific genetic variations in genes that may cause or contribute to a disease state. myScience provides users of the SNPlex™ Genotyping System with a simple entry point for submitting SNPs to the SNPlex™ System’s assay design pipeline.  Users can archive design reports and access them from the password protected myScience workspace. To order resequencing sets for the VariantSEQr™ Resequencing System, researchers can search in the myScience research environment under gene names, symbols, or chromosomal position. Graphical viewers allow users to more easily choose and order the most appropriate sets to meet their research needs.

The latest release of the Celera Discovery System™ (CDS) online platform provides additional proprietary content, integration of genomic data, and viewer functionality. In addition to Celera’s human and mouse genomic data, CDS now includes Celera’s genome assembly and annotation content for the rat, a major mammalian model organism.  Applied Biosystems has extended the interactive CDS graphical viewer to allow users to quickly visualize assembly-to-assembly differences between species or between public and Celera assemblies of the same species. A further enhancement of the graphical viewer enables researchers to add their own data, thereby graphically integrating their data with Celera and public data. Furthermore, the VariantSEQr™ resequencing product sets and the SNPlex™ System design and ordering pipeline are also now accessible through CDS.

“With these enhancements, myScience and CDS provide a more robust and differentiated set of online information resources and e-commerce tools to support our customers and facilitate the selection and ordering of our new reagent products,” said Michael W. Hunkapiller, Ph.D., President of Applied Biosystems. “The new features within the myScience research environment offer a simple way to integrate experimental workflows both online and at the lab bench by linking high-quality biological information directly with the ready-to-use assays for gene expression, genotyping, resequencing, and protein expression studies.”

“Furthermore, the additional assembly and annotation of the rat genome provides CDS subscribers greater comparative genomics capabilities that should further advance functional genomics and proteomics research,” said Dr. Hunkapiller.

About myScienceSM
myScienceSM is a free, online life science research environment within the Applied Biosystems Web site for the design and analysis of genomic based experiments. For more information visit http://myscience.appliedbiosystems.com/.

About the Celera Discovery System™ (CDS) Online Platform
CDS is a web-based discovery platform that provides scientists with access to a comprehensive source of integrated, curated, and validated proprietary and public biological data, including annotated human, mouse, and rat genomes. More than 250 institutions worldwide currently subscribe to CDS, including pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, as well as academic organizations. For more information visit http://www.celeradiscoverysystem.com/.

About Applera Corporation and Applied Biosystems
Applera Corporation consists of two operating groups. The Applied Biosystems Group serves the life science industry and research community by developing and marketing instrument-based systems, consumables, software, and services. Customers use these tools to analyze nucleic acids (DNA and RNA), small molecules, and proteins to make scientific discoveries, develop new pharmaceuticals, and conduct standardized testing.  Applied Biosystems is headquartered in Foster City, CA, and reported sales of $1.7 billion during fiscal 2003. The Celera Genomics Group (NYSE:CRA), located in Rockville, MD, and South San Francisco, CA, is engaged principally in integrating advanced technologies to discover and develop new therapeutics. Celera intends to leverage its proteomic, bioinformatic, and genomic capabilities to identify and validate drug targets, and to discover and develop new therapeutics. Its Celera Discovery SystemTM online platform, marketed exclusively by Applied Biosystems, is an integrated source of information based on the human genome and other biological and medical sources. Celera Diagnostics, a 50/50 joint venture between Applied Biosystems and Celera Genomics, is focused on discovery, development, and commercialization of novel diagnostic products. Information about Applera Corporation, including reports and other information filed by the company with the Securities and Exchange Commission, is available at http://www.applera.com, or by telephoning 800.762.6923. Information about Applied Biosystems is available at http://www.appliedbiosystems.com/.

Certain statements in this press release are forward-looking. These may be identified by the use of forward-looking words or phrases such as “believe,” “expect,” “should,” “anticipate,” and “planned,” among others. These forward-looking statements are based on Applera Corporation’s current expectations.  The Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 provides a “safe harbor” for such forward-looking statements. In order to comply with the terms of the safe harbor, Applera Corporation notes that a variety of factors could cause actual results and experience to differ materially from the anticipated results or other expectations expressed in such forward-looking statements. These factors include but are not limited to: (1) rapidly changing technology could adversely affect demand for Applied Biosystems’ products, and its business is dependent on development of new products; (2) uncertainty of successful integration of the myScienceSM research environment and the Celera Discovery System™ online platform with Applied Biosystems’ products and market acceptance and adoption of those products; (3) Applied Biosystems’ sales are dependent on customers’ capital spending policies and government-sponsored research; (4) dependence on the operation of computer hardware, software, and Internet applications and related technology for its businesses, particularly those focused on the development and marketing of information-based products and services (5) other factors that might be described from time to time in Applera Corporation’s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. All information in this press release is as of the date of the release, and Applera does not undertake any duty to update this information, including any forward-looking statements, unless required by law.

Copyright© 2004. Applera Corporation. All rights reserved. Applied Biosystems and Celera are  registered trademarks and Applera, Celera Diagnostics, Celera Discovery System, Celera Genomics, myScience, SNPlex, and VariantSEQr are trademarks of Applera Corporation or its subsidiaries in the U.S. and/or certain other countries.