Scientists Develop Open-Source Genome Analyzer

Scientists at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University have developed a desktop genome analyzer. It works in conjunction with a browser that allows biologists to rapidly and easily analyze and process their high-throughput information. The open-source software is called GenPlay, and it’s described in the May 19 online edition of Bioinformatics.

   Presently, genomic data is examined mainly by information specialists instead of the biologists who planned the experiments that produce the data. GenPlay was created because biologists needed a user-friendly, multi-purpose tool that can aid them in visualizing, analyzing and transforming their raw data into biologically relevant tracks.
   
“The first human genome was sequenced 10 years ago by an international consortium at a cost of $7 billion,” notes GenPlay co-developer Eric Bouhassira, Ph.D., senior author of the Bioinformatics article, professor of medicine and of cell biology, and the Ingeborg and Ira Leon Rennert Professor of Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine at Einstein.