LifeMap Sciences Inc, Marshfield, Mass, a subsidiary of BioTime Inc, has recently announced the commercial release of VarElect, a powerful, yet easy-to-use application for prioritizing gene variants resulting from next generation sequencing (NGS) experiments.
VarElect rapidly prioritizes gene variants according to their potential association to a disease or phenotype of interest, and can aid in identifying the roles of genes and their variants in biological processes, health, and disease.
BioTime is a biotechnology company engaged in research and product development in the field of regenerative medicine. Through a variety of subsidiaries, including LifeMap Sciences, BioTime is also developing stem cell and other products for research, therapeutic, and diagnostic appliactions.
VarElect is part of LifeMap’s NGS platform, which also includes GeneAnalytics, an intuitive gene set analysis tool. Both VarElect and GeneAnalytics are part of the GeneCards Plus suite, launched in 2014.
Doron Lancet, PhD, Weizmann Institute of Science
The tools leverage the LifeMap integrated biomedical knowledgebase and discovery platform, which includes GeneCards, the leading human gene database; MalaCards, the human disease database; and LifeMap Discovery, the database of embryonic development, stem cell research, and regenerative medicine. LifeMap’s products are used in more than 3,000 institutions including academia, research hospitals, patent offices, and leading biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies.
LifeMap holds the exclusive worldwide license to market GeneCards, MalaCards, GeneAlaCart, and VarElect from Yeda Research and Development Company Ltd, the commercial arm of the Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel.
“We are delighted to see how our robust integrated data platform and GeneCards advanced search capabilities gave birth to a new and highly effective gene variant prioritization tool that we and our companion groups use every day in our NGS decipherment endeavors,” says Doron Lancet, PhD, head of the Crown Human Genome Center at the Weizmann Institute of Science.
“We believe that VarElect will enable scientists worldwide to cost effectively utilize unprecedented amounts of genetic data from whole exome and genome experiments,” says David Warshawsky, PhD, CEO of LifeMap Sciences.
For further information, visit BioTime.
