A collaboration between a team of researchers in the field of microarray data analysis has resulted in new microarray analysis module from US company Insightful Corporation.
The company announced yesterday that the BioConductor Project team have produced the ArrayAnalyzer for its S-PLUS data analysis software package.
Microarray analysis is a fast-growing technology in the pharmaceutical industry that provides an understanding of the interaction between genes and pharmaceutical compounds.
According to Insightful, rule-of-thumb techniques that dominated much of the early data analysis activities have caused decision errors that result in higher costs and missed opportunities. In addition, the company claims that the S+ArrayAnalyzer is the first application from a commercial leader in statistical analysis that employs advanced statistical methods and visualisation techniques to lower microarray analysis costs and accelerate the time-to-market for promising new compounds.
"The BioConductor-Insightful collaboration helps ensure the distribution and high-level end-user support of key bioinformatics tools to the broadest possible population of researchers," said a spokesperson for The BioConductor Project. "BioConductor is an academic project focused on creation and distribution of high-quality open source statistical and computational methods and software for bioinformatics, while Insightful has over a decade of experience in user interface design, documentation, and user support for statistical computing. The results of this collaboration should benefit researchers in both commercial and non-profit organisations."