Gene Codes - 5.0 Press Release

After the ABRF Conference: Gene Codes Flooded with Requests for Early Access to NextGen Software Tools

Ann Arbor, Michigan - March 03, 2011 - Gene Codes Corporation has pulled back the curtain on some key features in its upcoming release of Sequencher® with support for Next Generation Sequencing [NGS] data. At the annual meeting of the Association of Biomolecular Resource Facilities [ABRF] in San Antonio, Gene Codes showed alignments with paired and unpaired reads from SOLiD, Illumina and 454 instruments. Conference attendees were given hands-on experience calling some of the alignment and visualization algorithms and tools that had been published in peer-reviewed journals and are now incorporated into Sequencher. Since the conference ended, the phones at Gene Codes headquarters have been ringing with scientists wanting early access.
 

One of the conference attendees was Paul Morrison, Director of the Molecular Biology Core Facilities at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Associate Director of the Molecular Biology and Genomics Core Facility, Center for AIDS Research at Harvard University. "This is just what we always liked getting from Gene Codes," said Morrison who has been using Sequencher since 1992. "The interface is so clear and obvious that you don't really need someone to explain it."
Howard Cash, President of Gene Codes, said ÔÇ£Our focus at Gene Codes has always been on ease of use and building an intuitive and understandable interface to the software. This was just the next step in taking very complicated information and helping the user find their way through the data. We only showed some of what will be in Sequencher 5.0, and that is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of what NGS analysis functions we plan to add over the next two years.ÔÇØ
 

Cash also noted that many did not immediately believe that the NGS version of Sequencher would not come at a higher price. ÔÇ£Several companies that had software to support capillary sequencing created a new program for NextGen data that their customer could buy. We had never done that before and I saw no reason to start now. When data moved from autorads to fluorescent sequencers in the early 90ÔÇÖs, labs could produce a lot more data and we added a lot of functionality to Sequencher. Our clients who were already paying for support got those improvements as part of our regular service. I donÔÇÖt see why this is any different.ÔÇØ
ÔÇ£We were overwhelmed with the response,ÔÇØ said Catherine Murray, Gene Codes Marketing Manager. ÔÇ£Gene CodesÔÇÖ NGS software plans were part of the presentation when our president gave the opening keynote address at ABRF in Salt Lake City a few years ago. ItÔÇÖs also been on our web site for months and weÔÇÖve sent out thousands of mailings, so we expected this not to surprise anyone.ÔÇØ Asked what was brought up most by conference goers, Murray said, ÔÇ£It wasnÔÇÖt just seeing the speed of some of the algorithms being developed in the community. Attendees were excited about how we had integrated those algorithms into the Sequencher user experience. ItÔÇÖs the feeling of using a familiar tool in a much more powerful way.ÔÇØ
 

Gene Codes' success is built on customer-driven product development, combining the latest programming techniques, rigorous quality control and an open dialogue with customers to produce products of the utmost usability and industry relevance.
As the popularity of Sequencher has grown, so has the company. Gene Codes is a motivated, enthusiastic, high-energy organization based in Ann Arbor, with offices in New York City and in Brighton, England. Gene Codes' corporate culture values flexible collaboration, shared responsibility, and dynamic change.
 

Contact: Catherine Murray, Marketing Manager
catie@genecodes.com
(800) 497-4939