Basel, 2002/05/22

The German academic "Competence Network Pathogenomik" based at the University of Würzburg, and Genedata, a privately-held Swiss bioinformatics company, today announced that they have entered into a collaboration on the genomics of pathogenic bacteria. The collaboration will join some of Europe's most influential research groups in the area of infectious disease and Genedata's exceptional expertise in large scale biological data analysis.

Under the agreement the Competence Network Pathogenomik obtains access to major parts of Genedata's established computational platform with Phylosopher and Expressionist for genome and mRNA profile analysis, respectively. These enterprise wide solutions will ensure the efficient use of the software from the 20 different locations of the network.

"Now that more and more of the established therapies of bacterial infections fail to stay effective there is an even stronger need for a thorough understanding of basic principles underlying pathogen host interactions." said Prof. Werner Goebel, speaker of the Competence Network. The collaboration with Genedata will allow us to jumpstart at genome scale studies of relevant model systems.

"With the threat of a post antibiotic era there is an urgent need for new targets for vaccines and antibiotic treatment." said Dr. Othmar Pfannes, CEO of Genedata. "We believe that the joined effort of the Competence Network Pathogenomik, an outstanding academic initiative, and Genedata's expertise in the analysis of microbial genomes coupled with its gene and protein expression analysis technologies will put research on the expressway." The Collaboration was agreed upon between the Competence Network Pathogenomik and Genedata's German subsidiary Genedata GmbH, Martinsried.

The Competence Network Pathogenomik (www.biozentrum.uni-wuerzburg.de/pathogenomik/), based at the University of Würzburg, was established in 2001 as one of three research networks, which are working on structural and functional analysis of bacterial genomes. Funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research with 10 million EUR for 3 years the Competence Network Pathogenomik coordinates the work of 25 research groups at 15 German universities and research institutes and focuses on pathogenic bacteria, which are of high scientific and public health interest, but also have a high potential for the development of new diagnostic, prophylactic and therapeutic procedures. One part of the Competence Network Pathogenomik, which is organisationally independent, is coordinated by the University of Stuttgart.