Transinsight and antibodies-online Develop Software for Semantic Gene and Protein Identification
Since July 2009 Transinsight GmbH and antibodies-online GmbH partner together with TU Dresden and RESprotect GmbH to develop and deploy new semantic search technologies for the Life-Science industry. Their joint efforts are funded by the THESEUS research program from the German Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology (BMWi). With only a few months into the project, the partnering companies are now able to demonstrate a first outcome of their research to the public: Research antibodies that semantically fit to genes and proteins discussed within a certain biomedical publication are automatically suggested to the reader on Transinsight's search engine www.GoPubMed.com.
"The scientist, who keeps himself up-to-date on recent biomedical publications with our knowledge-based search engine GoPubMed.com is now further supported by suggestions of semantically fitting research products for his/her specific research needs," says Dr. Michael R. Alvers, founder and CEO of Transinsight GmbH. The time consuming search for the right research antibody to a specific research question is one of the key pains in proteomics and genomics laboratories. Any simplification of this search problem, which delivers correct information instead of unhelpful, generic advertising, is welcome within the scientific community. Searching, finding and ordering the right research antibody from within a global offer of 500.000 products from more than 500 suppliers worldwide is normally a tedious work. To apply semantic, knowledge driven product recommendations to biomedical publications and thus to allow to significantly reduce the workload for the scientist always in need of research products is a truly innovative approach.
"Once the scientist has chosen a product of interest, antibodies-online GmbH takes care of all the rest, i.e. procurement of the desired products from anywhere around the world," adds Dr. Andreas Kessell, founder and managing director of antibodies-online GmbH. "Our customer is not bound to the portfolio of a single supplier but can chose from a neutral portfolio of research antibodies, that are suggested with the biomedical publications," says Dr. Kessell.
The software solution behind this innovative offer of the partnering companies Transinsight und antibodies-online is currently being developed within the THESEUS research program. Transinsight's existing semantic search platform already detects genes and proteins reliably in scientific publications and these results can be linked to the products on antibodies-online.com. "With the launch of this first prototype we managed the initial integration of the information provided on the two platforms of the partnering companies - however, the list of tasks to be taken on remains long," explains Dr. Alvers.
About antibodies-online GmbH With more than 200.000 research antibodies offered antibodies-online GmbH is one of the leading internet marketplaces for research products worldwide. The scientific community apparently searches the internet for products that suit their research needs. On antibodies-online's websites scientists can search or browse the offer of numerous suppliers worldwide as well as order the antibody directly online, via phone or via fax. The company was founded as a spin-off of Aachen Technology University and the University Hospital of Aachen as a supplier independent German platform in April 2006. By the end of 2008 anticorps-enligne.fr, kangti-zaixian.cn and antibodies-online.com were launched as international marketplaces. Since then all listed antibodies are marketed and distributed worldwide.About Transinsight GmbH Transinsight develops knowledge-based semantic solutions in the Life Sciences. Their flagship products www.Go3R.org and www.GoPubMed.com, renowned biomedical search engines, are the first knowledge-based search systems of the next generation not only for the Life Sciences on the internet. In acknowledgement of the technologies developed by the company, Transinsight has repeatedly been honored with international awards i.e. the reddot design award best of the best 2009 and the German Industry Prize 2010. The firm works in close collaboration with the Dresden University of Technology. Selected customers are: Unilever, BASF, BfR, Statoil, RWE, Abcam und EMBL. For further information on Transinsight on the internet, see www.transinsight.com.About THESEUS research program The THESEUS research program was launched by the Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology (BMWi) in 2007 as a flagship project of the German Federal Government. As part of the program, about 60 companies, research institutes and universities are running projects to develop application-orientated basic technologies and technical standards for the internet of services. The aim is to develop new products and services for the internet. The program is scheduled to run for five years and is funded by around €100 m from the BMWi. The funds made available for research and development are being divided equally between science and economics. An additional €100 m is being contributed by interested partners in industry and research from their own funds.