FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

INCOGEN Releases Beta Version of VIBE-Ed Bioinformatics Education Software
 

Product of Phase II Award from National Science Foundation

Williamsburg, VA.  January 19, 2006

INCOGEN has announced the Beta release of VIBE-Ed Bioinformatics Education Software following the 2005 $500,000 National Science Foundation Phase II SBIR award to create an educational version of their industry-leading bioinformatics analysis workflow platform, VIBE.

The VIBE-Ed project addresses the lack of formal bioinformatics teaching software at universities. This lack of tools creates a bottleneck in the training process of new bioinformaticists, especially as the number of bioinformatics students continues to grow. Based on the existing INCOGEN visual programming research workflow software, VIBE, the VIBE Education Edition (VIBE-Ed) software focuses on exposing students to a variety of bioinformatics tools through an environment that promotes hands-on experimentation to gain an in-depth understanding.

The funding primarily came from Phase I&II SBIR awards. "Currently, bioinformatics instructors at universities are doing their best to teach students using tools that were developed for research purposes. VIBE-Ed takes advantage of all of VIBE's best features and is the first software package specifically developed for bioinformatics education," said Dr. Maciek Sasinowski, INCOGEN's CEO.

VIBE-Ed will be beta-tested at several universities, including Northwestern University, The College of William and Mary, Harvard University, and University of Delaware.

The software will be co-marketed with Apple Computer, Inc.

For additional information about the VIBE-Ed project, please visit: www.incogen.com/vibe-ed.  

About INCOGEN:

INCOGEN, Inc. provides state-of-the-art software and industry-leading professional services to scientists involved in pharmaceutical, agricultural and biotechnology research. The suite of INCOGEN tools includes GenePort®, a web-browser-based information mining and management portal; VIBE™, an extensible bioinformatics visual programming and workflow management platform; and HDFR™ and Magelan™, two image analysis software packages. INCOGEN Professional Services provide scientists with industry-leading technological expertise to assist researchers with every phase of design, development and implementation of their informatics infrastructures. The company is committed to supplying the research community with tools to optimize the analysis, mining, and management of life science data.