GenomeQuest™ integrates GeneChip data with genomic information from public, private, and patent data sources on in-house servers

Worcester, Massachusetts - September 14, 2005 – Gene-IT today announced that its GenomeQuest™ has achieved GeneChip-compatible™ status with the Affymetrix Inc. (Nasdaq: AFFX) GeneChip® microarray platform, and that it has joined the Affymetrix GeneChip-compatible™ Applications Program, which provides customers with a broad spectrum of software solutions for biomedical research and development. As a GeneChip-compatible™ software provider, Gene-IT is committed to seamlessly integrating its GenomeQuest™ with the Affymetrix GeneChip platform.

Integration of Affymetrix GeneChip microarray annotations into GenomeQuest provides biologists with timely and comprehensive microarray annotation reports. GenomeQuest integrates lists of identifiers with sequence comparison for inter- and cross-species searching of up-to-date biological and patent reference data. Search results are automatically formatted into reports, which can be published as Microsoft Word documents. Results can also be uploaded to popular microarray analysis packages. GenomeQuest also maintains continuous surveillance of all of its data sources, and automatically sends email alerts when new information is discovered. Sequence identifiers or full-length RNA transcripts can be easily extracted for further experimentation, such as PCR.

“For the first time, customers have a single, commercially-supported searching and data integration solution that combines public, private, patent, and now Affymetrix GeneChip microarray data. Our service continuously updates this information on in-house computing resources without the need for human intervention, states Ron Ranauro, CEO of Gene-IT.

“Affymetrix is dedicated to providing our customers with effective and innovative solutions for applying microarray data in biomedical research and development, said Steve Lincoln, Vice President of Informatics at Affymetrix. “We are pleased to be working with Gene-IT to expand our mutual customers’ knowledge of the genes and variants which can be studied using our GeneChip microarrays.