Leading Edge R&D:

IDBS DEVELOPS WEB-BASED DM AND REPORTING APP

At the Society for Biomolecular Screening Conference and Exhibition (Booth 723&725) - ID Business Solutions (IDBS), a leading provider of integrated data management, analysis and decision-making software, announced DiscoveryChannel, a new Web-based querying and reporting suite of applications for data mining of chemical and biological information. Developed for IDBS databases such as ActivityBase, DiscoveryChannel offers a straightforward and intuitive way to mine data, without needing to pre-define queries or have expert knowledge of the data structure. This makes flexible querying and analysis readily available, thereby increasing the data's accessibility and maximizing the chance to recognize relevant connections between data.

According to Neil Kipling, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of IDBS, "With this offering, our customers can create even more value from their data stored in ActivityBase databases. DiscoveryChannel makes information accessible to a wide group of people within an organization through familiar Web concepts." He continued, "In contrast to less structured Web browsing tools, which can return unmanageable amounts of data without scientific context and of uncertain relevance, DiscoveryChannel helps users to stay focused on their search objectives, such as Structure Activity Relationship analysis. The system supports good decision making by ensuring relevant information is detected and returned, along with a full complement of contextual information."

Providing rapid and easy access to relevant biological and chemical data, DiscoveryChannel has tailored "channels" that facilitate particular types of query -- the first of which is SARchannel for Structure Activity Relationship reporting. A "Discovery Tree" within SARchannel provides an intuitive, customizable view on the database data hierarchy, allowing users to visualize the relationships between different data types. For example, scientists can view projects, assays and results, as well as any parent-child relationships between them.

Coupled with a logical free-text search engine capability, Discovery Tree allows users to focus quickly on all the results of interest and see the connections between them. For example, shared targets or assays associated with multiple projects are easily identified by the logical free-text search which highlights relevant "data nodes" -- such as assays and result types. In addition, since biopharmaceutical corporate naming conventions often vary from site to site, and may not intuitively reflect the nature of the assay or project they represent, DiscoveryChannel's querying capabilities make it easier for scientists to get to the information they want by allowing them to search for their own choice of scientific words and phrases within the database.

DiscoveryChannel allows scientists to see clearly the connections between data and its scientific context. To help focus on only the most relevant results, ranges can be defined for any or all of the conditions associated with a particular assay. For example, for an Exploratory Behavior (EB) value, information such as the species, gender, dose and receptor are all important to make the data meaningful -- especially if a user is not familiar with that area of study.

The system also offers access to concise information and useful statistical data about assays, such as the numbers of verified results available for that assay, lists of projects to which the assay is assigned and high/low variance and average results.

Allowing fast access to necessary compounds, SARchannel can initiate searches on chemical or biological parameters, or both. DiscoveryChannel utilizes the full capabilities of the IDBS chemical cartridge for Oracle, allowing chemical searches to be defined by structure and sub-structure (including full stereochemistry), compound ID and chemical properties, such as LogP and molecular mass. Another feature, a "shopping cart" functionality, is available within DiscoveryChannel in the form of the "Pill Box" which saves regular queries and lists of results or compounds for future easy access.

At the click of the mouse, SARchannel generates Structure Activity Reports, presenting the required chemical compound information beside all relevant biological data in an accessible tabular format. These are HTML reports, which are ideal for browsing and sorting relatively short lists. For more rigorous analysis, data sets are exported to richly functional client applications such as IDBS' SARview which provides a "wizard" to develop and store report layouts. SARview also allows substructure searching and "drug-like" filtering of the data set and offers report-printing capabilities.

About ID Business Solutions Ltd

Founded in 1989, IDBS employs over 130 people worldwide. IDBS works with discovery organizations who need to maximize the value of their research data, by providing software solutions to capture, manage and use biological and chemical information in an integrated framework. Unlike resource-intensive tool-based solutions, IDBS delivers complete -- and proven -- applications that bridge the gap between IT and science. Headquartered in Guildford, United Kingdom, IDBS has offices in Emeryville, California; Parsippany, New Jersey; and, Cambridge, Massachusetts. In Japan, CTC Laboratory Systems represent IDBS. For more information visit www.id-bs.com.

IDBS' DiscoveryChannel contains Star Tree from Inxight Software Inc, www.inxight.com.

Contact IDBS Ltd, Jennifer Viera, 617-536-3300, jviera@schneiderpr.com.