RIKEN Center for Genomics Medicine Chooses Genedata Expressionist for High Throughput Proteomics R&D

Japan’s largest research organization uses Expressionist’s data processing and analysis capabilities to eliminate Mass Spectrometry data analysis bottlenecks

February 16, 2010
Basel, Switzerland and Tokyo, Japan

Genedata, a leading provider of advanced software solutions for drug discovery and life science research, today announced that the Japanese research foundation RIKEN has chosen Genedata Expressionist^® to support biomarker development for cancer research. The renowned government foundation is using proteome analysis and Mass Spectrometry (MS) to identify biomarkers to aid in the development of serum-based diagnostic methods.

“We generate huge volumes of MS data in our proteomics facility,” explained Dr. Koji Ueda, a project leader at the Laboratory for Biomarker Development at RIKEN. “Data analysis has been a major bottleneck and Genedata Expressionist is the only solution we found that can meet our high throughput needs.”

RIKEN’s biomarker development group is using the Refiner MS and Analyst modules from the Genedata Expressionist system for high throughput LC-MS-based proteomics data processing and analysis. Refiner MS processes thousands of samples and terabytes of raw MS data and combines intuitive visualization with sophisticated algorithms for peak intensity and alignment correction, detection, quantification and matching.

“In the field of Clinical Proteomics, there has been a great need to quantitatively analyze as many clinical samples as possible because of individual variations, and we had problems with the alignment of such a huge amount of MS data. However, Refiner MS solved them for us,” continued Ueda. “Now, we can confidently quantify and identify peaks, which has improved our overall biomarker development. In addition, using Analyst we can focus on sophisticated statistical analysis tasks, which allow data-mining from all perspectives and help us find the best predictive biomarkers in human sera.”

“RIKEN is one of Japan’s leading research facilities and they are making great strides in discovering biomarkers for early cancer diagnosis and risk identification,” said Dr. Othmar Pfannes, CEO of Genedata. “We are honored to have Genedata Expressionist chosen as the computational solution for biomarker research at this prestigious institute, which underscores Genedata’s continuing expansion in Japan.”
 

About RIKEN Center for Genomic Medicine
Founded in 2000 as a part of Japan's Millennium Genome Project, the RIKEN Center for Genomic Medicine was known as the RIKEN SNP Research Center until it adopted its current name in 2008. The main aim of this center is to construct infrastructure for the realization of personalized medicine through the establishment of large-scale, high-throughput SNP genotyping technologies. Using these techniques, researchers systematically analyze SNPs in the human genome and search for disease-related genes, genes related to drug response and examine the effect of SNPs on gene function.
www.src.riken.go.jp/english