REDWOOD CITY, California, January 9, 2012 /PRNewswire/ --

Ingenuity Systems, a leading provider of information and analysis solutions for life science researchers, today announced that TRON (Translational Oncology at University Medical Center Mainz) has used Ingenuity Variant Analysis™ to identify cancer driver variants that inform the development of an experimental individualized RNA-based therapeutic.

The ability to identify causal variants from the output of a whole genome or exome sequencing experiment remains a major bottleneck in making scientific discoveries and realizing the value of NGS sequencing.  To address these challenges, Ingenuity has leveraged the Ingenuity^® Knowledge Base of accurate, curated biological content and the most comprehensive database of curated mutation information to develop Ingenuity Variant Analysis.  Ingenuity Variant Analysis is currently available in limited access and enables researchers to quickly sift through millions of variants to identify a few causal variants based upon known relationships with pathways, genes, biological processes, and diseases.

"Individualized therapy development is about speed and accuracy.  As scientists and clinicians explore new avenues for truly individualized cancer therapy and personalized medicine, it is critical to have tools that help us quickly prioritize cancer driver variants for treatment of a particular patient," stated John Castle, Co-Head of the TRON Biomarker Development Center.  "Ingenuity Variant Analysis helped us identify 30 compelling tumor-specific variants in record time that we then used to inform our first experimental therapeutic RNA cocktail."

"TRON researchers are pioneers in the application of NGS technology," said Doug Bassett, Ph.D., Chief Scientific Officer and Chief Technology Officer, Ingenuity Systems.  "This is a promising approach that could provide a potent new weapon in the fight against cancer, training patients' own immune systems to fight tumor cells.  We are proud that Ingenuity Variant Analysis is able to play a critical role in the fight against genetic disease."

About Ingenuity Variant Analysis™

Ingenuity Variant Analysis is a web application that enables researchers to identify causal variants from human resequencing data in just minutes using known information about the biological effects of variants.  Ingenuity Variant Analysis uses the accurate, curated biological content in the Ingenuity Knowledge Base, plus many additional sources of variant-level content, to help researchers studying genetics and disease biology quickly sift through millions of variants to identify a few causal variants based upon known relationships with pathways, genes, biological processes, and diseases. For more information visit: http://www.ingenuity.com/products/ingenuity_variant_analysis.html

About TRON

TRON (Translational Oncology at the University Medical Center of the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz), is a biopharmaceutical research organization that pursues new diagnostics and drugs for the treatment of cancer and other diseases of the immune system.  A focus of TRON is the development of novel platforms for individualized therapies and biomarkers, translating basic research into drug applications.  TRON partners with academic institutions, biotech companies and the pharmaceutical industry, executing research with leading-edge technologies and supporting the development of innovative drugs with its unique expertise and infrastructure.

About Ingenuity ® Systems

Ingenuity Systems is a leading provider of information solutions and custom services for life science researchers, computational biologists and bioinformaticists, and life science industry suppliers.  For more information visit: http://www.ingenuity.com

SOURCE Ingenuity Systems