Making the shift towards bio-informatics

Paying regular visits to Pistoia Alliance meetings, like the one in London on ‘Next Generation Sequencing’ recently, allows us to have sneak previews into the promising future of R&D in life sciences. Quite unintentionally, it also allows us the opportunity to do some self-reflection to see if we are still on the right track. Judging from all that we have seen and heard, we are more convinced than ever that turning back to our roots of scientific IT and ultimately bio-informatics is indeed the right choice for Vivenics.

Improved sequencing

Regardless of the specific topic discussed, there is one element that binds them all together: the explosion of research data that will only accelerate in the years to come. Unraveling our genetic material to allow for better and more personalized medicine simply requires even faster and improved sequencing. More and more equipment is becoming available that increasingly meets these requirements. However, the tools for analyzing these oceans of data are having a hard time keeping pace. The ultimate challenge we face is how to keep these data manageable and analyzable. A few blogs ago, we introduced our partnership with Dotmatics in the field of both biological research and analyses and data visualization. We are happy to announce that Vivenics staff is now being trained in their cutting-edge and affordable Vortex software.

‘Piping tool’

Building on and extending the spreadsheet paradigm, Vortex provides the data manipulation, statistical analysis and sophisticated plotting capabilities required to explore and understand any complexity and size of data. Almost simultaneously we are building expertise in working with KNIME software. Rather than bringing data to life by presenting data graphically to detect deviations, KNIME in turn is a so-called ‘piping’ tool. As such it can integrate, import, manipulate and redirect comprehensive data streams from different sources for further analysis. Just imagine what AI and Machine Learning can contribute in this context in the long run! From a scientific perspective it is already hard to be patient, let alone be ‘a’ patient waiting for a cure …