ACADEMIA

WASHINGTON -- Teranode Corporation today unveiled its strategy for delivering model-based design tools for the Life Sciences at the Bio2003 conference being held this week in Washington, D.C. In addition to disclosing its technology direction, the company announced a grant awarded to it by the NIH. Teranode technology enables closed-loop discovery, development and production for life sciences. Based on a rich visual modeling language, these design tools unify the planning, execution, and analysis of physical and in-silico processes, standardizing methods and hypothesis representations across disciplines and functional areas in the research environment. Teranode is leading the way with important technology for the scientific community. These tools have the potential to extend the reach of the individual scientist by allowing them to manage the complexity of experimentation in a simple, visual way that is clearly tied to model driven predictions and experimental outcomes," said Dr. Yongmin Kim, Professor and Chair of Bioengineering at the University of Washington (UW). "Teranode technology is another great example of UW excellence in Bioengineering entrepreneurship and how outstanding research at the interface of Biology and Engineering can enable the development of useful tools for the scientists." The Language of Experimentation Teranode's design and execution tools are based upon a visual modeling language that allows biologists to represent, annotate and share information about complex experiment plans and outcomes as well as biological systems. This precise, extensible, and flexible icon-based language captures experiments in an understandable form -- easing communication and compliance with record keeping requirements. "Teranode's visual modeling capability is every Principal Investigator's dream, something I did not realize until I had a chance to work with it myself," said Alex Zhang, PhD, Director, Cell Therapy Center, Beijing Institute of Geriatrics. "It is particularly useful in our large clinically based research projects where different regimes of experiments are combined in a concerted effort." Focus on Managing Experiment Complexity As larger, cross disciplinary teams are assembled to tackle complex problems, they require tools that will enable them to communicate about experiments and predictions with little or no extra effort. Anticipating this trend, Teranode delivers tools that enable large-scale biology in a straightforward, intuitive way. "Research and development in life sciences has to scale beyond the ability for one group, division, or even company to own all of the required resources," said Larry Arnstein, CTO of Teranode Corporation. "Instead, standard languages and tools are needed that allow small focused groups to make specific contributions in the context of a large scale project within or across enterprises. Languages and tools are what make it possible for thousands of engineers to collaborate on the design and production of complex systems -- around the clock and around the globe. Teranode technology brings this capability to the life sciences."