Genedata Launches Expressionist with Expanded Mass Spectrometry Biomarker Discovery Capabilities

Genedata, a leading provider of in silico solutions for pharmaceutical R&D and related life sciences, today announced the release of Expressionist 5.2 with enhanced capabilities for Mass Spectrometry (MS)-based biomarker discovery.

Included in the Expressionist system are the advanced Refiner MS and Analyst modules, which process and analyze metabolomic and proteomic raw MS data and provide sophisticated statistical analysis capabilities for large volume data sets. Expressionist 5.2 will be demonstrated at the 57th ASMS Conference on Mass Spectrometry, May 31 – June 4, 2009, Booth 133 at the Pennsylvania Convention Center.

“Genedata’s continued investment in Expressionist is invaluable and the new Expressionist system will drastically change the ways in which we are able to probe experimental systems,” commented Professor James Mobley, director of the Comprehensive Cancer Center Proteomics Facility at the University of Alabama. ”Expressionist enables us to better understand underlying biological mechanisms and the support for labeled MS data allows us to address an ever-larger array of experimental protocols.”

In addition to supporting ABI Wiff files, version 5.2 of Refiner MS adds Thermo Exactive and GC-MS as well as Agilent Q-TOF and GC-MS instruments to the wide list of already supported hardware platforms and vendor formats. Building on a powerful technology hub concept for raw MS data processing, peak identification and annotation tools in Expressionist have been enhanced to offer direct links to search engines and databases such as MASCOT or HMDB. Additionally, improved library searches are possible via the computation of retention-time indices.

“The release of Expressionist 5.2 underscores our continued commitment to support all types of omics technologies. In particular we are proud to provide innovative software for high throughput peak processing and identification for large MS datasets at a time when this type of data has become more and more standard in proteomics and metabolomics projects,” said Dr. Othmar Pfannes, CEO of Genedata. Expressionist features support for labelled workflows using Stable Isotope Labeling with Amino Acids in Cell Culture (SILAC) and Multiple Reaction Monitoring (MRM) targeted analysis. Usability improvements include blank chromatogram subtraction and spectrum peak clustering.

"We are delighted by the market acceptance of our MS offering for proteomics and metabolomics in pharmaceutical, biotechnology, agricultural and academic as well as government R&D projects,” Dr. Pfannes continued.“I am proud of our team’s ability to quickly provide solutions for a wide variety of requests for standardization and automation of MS data analysis processes.”