INCOGEN Receives Phase II Award from National Science Foundation to Develop Bioinformatics Education Software; The Company to Co-Market Software With Apple Computer
INCOGEN has announced that it received a $500,000 Phase II SBIR award from the National Science Foundation to create an educational version of their industry-leading bioinformatics analysis workflow platform, VIBE. The new software, called VIBE Education Edition, or VIBE-Ed, will take advantage of the rich and user-friendly features of VIBE to teach students about concepts in bioinformatics.
The funding is a follow-on to a Phase I SBIR award which INCOGEN received from the National Science Foundation in 2004. During the Phase I project, VIBE was evaluated in university classrooms and compared head-to-head with current methods of bioinformatics education under the guidance of education professionals and assessments experts. “The Phase I project made it clear that there is a tremendous need for more sophisticated tools to adequately train the next generation of bioinformaticists,” said Dr. Maciek Sasinowski, INCOGEN’s CEO. “Currently, bioinformatics instructors at universities are doing their best to teach students using tools that were developed for research purposes. VIBE-Ed will take advantage of all of VIBE’s best features and is going to be the first software package specifically developed for bioinformatics education.”
A first version of the software will be released by the end of the year and will be beta-tested at several universities, including Northwestern University, The College of William and Mary, Harvard University, and University of Delaware. “We are delighted to work with INCOGEN on this important educational project,” said Dr. Simon Lin, Associate Director of the Bioinformatics Center at Northwestern University. “This is a critical time for bioinformatics education. This software will help produce sophisticated researchers who will be instrumental in achieving the promise and benefits of biotechnology in areas such as health care and agricultural research.”
The software will be co-marketed with Apple Computer, Inc. Don Van Dyke, INCOGEN’s Vice President for Business Development said, “Apple has been a leader in the education market for many years. This partnership will allow us to enter the market with the premier name in higher education computing and we expect the results to be striking.”
For additional information about the VIBE-Ed project, please visit: www.incogen.com/vibe-ed .
About INCOGEN:
INCOGEN, Inc. provides state-of-the-art software and industry-leading professional services to scientists involved in pharmaceutical, agricultural and biotechnology research. The suite of INCOGEN tools includes GenePort(R), a web-browser-based information mining and management portal; VIBE(TM), an extensible bioinformatics visual programming and workflow management platform; and HDFR(TM) and Magelan(TM), two image analysis software packages. INCOGEN Professional Services provide scientists with industry-leading technological expertise to assist researchers with every phase of design, development and implementation of their informatics infrastructures. The company is committed to supplying the research community with tools to optimize the analysis, mining, and management of life science data.
