Launch of new Gene Expression Service

Plexpress, developer of the innovative TRAC platform for high-throughput gene expression analysis, has announced a new collaboration with MediSapiens, a specialist in cloud computing, software and the user-friendly mining of vast genomic databases. The companies have launched the new OncoTRAC™ Gene Expression Service, which takes advantage of MediSapiens’ extensive IST Online Gene Expression Database to facilitate the rapid, reliable identification of relevant genes of interest. After this initial discovery phase, the Plexpress FAST TRAC Gene Expression Analysis technology is used to assay the expression of a hand-selected 30-gene panel in a large number of samples. The unique combination of these two complimentary approaches presents a complete solution from gene discovery through to validation and in-depth study, across a wide range of drug development, biomarker discovery and life science research applications.

Tommi Pisto, CEO of MediSapiens, commented: “With a database of over 20,000 samples and 300 million data points, our MediSapiens IST Online Gene Expression Viewer is the world’s largest unified gene expression database. The new OncoTRAC Service will allow users to leverage this data to discover new genes and then investigate their biological relevance.”

CEO of Plexpress, Dr Jari Rautio, said: “TRAC is the ideal technology for following up genomic discovery using the IST Online Gene Expression Viewer, as it allows the multiplex analysis of up to 30 genes in hundreds to thousands of samples. In this way, researchers can really investigate the biology of their system in considerable depth, without sacrificing the number of genes they can assay in each sample.”