LifeMap Sciences Announces Release of MalaCards Version 1.05 with New Categorization
ALAMEDA, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–LifeMap Sciences, Inc. announced today the release of MalaCards, Version 1.05. The new release is available at www.malacards.org. MalaCards is a database of human diseases and their annotations that is modeled on the architecture and richness of the popular GeneCards® database of human genes (www.genecards.org). The database consolidates disease data from 61 sources and in this version contains 19,392 disease entries, 11,915 of which include associated genes. LifeMap Sciences holds the exclusive worldwide license to market MalaCards from Yeda Research and Development Company Ltd., the commercial arm of the Weizmann Institute of Science.
MalaCards 1.05 includes the following features and improvements:
- New MalaCards categories via mapping to widely used categorizations such as ICD10, and by algorithmic heuristics. Categories are ranked within the disease.
- Improved algorithm for affiliating and ranking disease-associated genes, and affiliation support types.
- New epidemiological data
- New links to disease expression data from GEO
- Improved maladies families algorithm
- New interface with The Genetic Testing Registry
- Improved disease based publications directly from PubMed
- New scheme tags from schema.org
- List improvement via manual curation and improved integration heuristics
“I see the new version of MalaCards as a turning point in this database’s evolution. Its upgraded content and new schemes for inter-disease and gene-disease relations make it more consistent, comprehensive, and informative. This is in line with our aspiration to provide a leading human disease compendium,” said Professor Doron Lancet, Ph.D., Head of the Crown Human Genome Center, at the Weizmann Institute of Science and principal investigator of MalaCards.
About LifeMap Sciences, Inc.
LifeMap Sciences’ (www.lifemapsc.com) core technology and business is based on its Integrated Biomedical Knowledgebase and discovery platform for biomedical research, which currently includes GeneCards®, the leading human gene database; LifeMap Discovery®, the database of embryonic development, stem cell research and regenerative medicine; and MalaCards, the human disease database. LifeMap’s products are used in many institutions including academia, research hospitals, patent offices, and leading biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies. LifeMap is also engaged in therapeutics discovery, utilizing LifeMap’s proprietary platform to aid in the development of products for the treatment of degenerative diseases, including utilizing BioTime’s proprietary, PureStem™ human progenitor cell lines. In addition to its currently marketed products, LifeMap is pursuing several new internet and informatics products with substantial rapid revenue growth potential, leveraging its existing products and their large user base.
About the Weizmann Institute of Science and GeneCards
The Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel, is one of the world’s top-ranking multidisciplinary research institutions. Noted for its wide-ranging exploration of the natural and exact sciences, the Institute is home to scientists, postdoctoral fellows, Ph.D. and M.Sc. students, and scientific, technical and administrative staff. In addition, visiting scientists and their families – over 500 from 35 countries are regularly hosted at the Institute. The Institute was founded in 1934 following a donation to Dr. Chaim Weizmann, a noted biochemist and biotechnologist, who envisioned the establishment of a world-class scientific research center in Israel, and later also became the first President of the State of Israel. Weizmann Institute’s Feinberg Graduate School, established in 1958, has 1000 M.Sc. and Ph.D. students enrolled in studies covering the Institute’s five faculties: Biochemistry, Biology, Chemistry, Physics, and Mathematics and Computer Science. The Institute’s technology transfer arm, Yeda Research and Development Co. was the first company of its kind in Israel, and is currently one of the most successful worldwide. Institute research efforts include the search for new ways of fighting disease and hunger, examining leading questions in mathematics and computer science, probing the physics of matter and the universe, creating novel materials and developing new strategies for protecting the environment. Particular excellence in bioinformatics and systems biology is manifested, among others, in the GeneCards project, initiated in 1996, under the leadership of Prof. Doron Lancet of the Dept. of Molecular Genetics, Head of the Crown Human Genome Center. A team of 10 led by Marilyn Safran continuously innovates and keeps GeneCards as a world-top human gene compendium, automatically mining and integrating 100 worldwide web resources.
