ACADEMIA

WASHINGTON -- Teranode Corporation today announced that it has been awarded a $1.8M grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to develop languages and tools for communication and collaboration that are required for large-scale biology. In addition, the company announced its' strategy for delivering model-based software tools based on a new visual language for experiments. The NIH grant, announced today at the Bio2003 conference in Washington DC, will be used by Teranode to develop and deploy software that unifies the planning, execution and documentation of research and production processes. This technology will be combined with Teranode's software for modeling and simulation to realize the promise of closed-loop integration between physical and in-silico processes. The grant is the second part of a two-stage R21/R33 process that was originated at the University of Washington and retained by Teranode effective May 15, 2003. "Science is all about sharing data," said Dr. James Cassatt, Director, Division of Cell Biology and Biophysics, NIGMS. "It is so important that NIH already requires crystallographic coordinates and sequence data to be submitted to the Protein Data Bank and GenBank. NIH is currently exploring an extension of this policy to other types of data. Hence, through its BISTI initiatives, NIH is funding research into languages and tools that makes this easy." Strong History, Partnership with the University of Washington Teranode founders, Dr. Larry Arnstein and Dr. Neil Fanger completed the feasibility phase of the grant (R21) at the University of Washington in the Computer Science & Engineering Department and the Cell Systems Initiative laboratory of the Bioengineering Department. The original research stemmed from an investigation into ubiquitous computing, the study of how computing technologies and user interfaces can be more smoothly integrated into various task environments, and was supported by grants from DARPA, the NSF and Intel Research. Teranode was founded in 2003 with a technology transfer from the University, and given Principal Investigator responsibilities for the second phase of the R21/R33 NIH grant, which will be used in part to sustain continued collaboration with the University of Washington in the development and deployment of these technologies. "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," said Dr. Yongmin Kim, Professor and Chair of Bioengineering at the University of Washington (UW). Research Complexity Challenges 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. Teranode design and execution tools are based on 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. "This new language standardizes experiment design across disciplines and research functions as they exists today," said Dr. Neil Fanger, Chief Operating Officer of Teranode Corporation and co-investigator on the NIH grant. "Research groups get greater efficiency while retaining the flexibility and adaptability that they need." Management Team Teranode Corporation's diverse and veteran management team brings the combination of skills and backgrounds that are required to operate a successful software company focused on life sciences. Joseph Duncan, CEO and Chairman, brings executive experience from the commercial software industry and a proven record of innovative technology development. He has served in a variety of senior management positions, including Chief Operations and Technology Officer at UW's Cell Systems Initiative, CIO and VP of R&D for Critical Path, Senior Vice President at Oracle Corporation and senior management positions at Borland International, Lotus Development Corporation, and Wang Laboratories. As Chief Technology Officer and Director, Larry Arnstein, PhD applies his unique mix of academic and industrial experience to bring customer focus, management experience, and software technology vision to Teranode. Dr. Arnstein is the Principal Investigator for Teranode's NIH funded research program, which he began as a faculty member in the University of Washington's Computer Science & Engineering Department. Prior to his research into engineering tools for life sciences, Dr, Arnstein was the Director of Consulting Services for Cadence Design System in Japan where he managed a team of project managers and engineers that sold and delivered millions of dollars worth of professional services to Japanese semiconductor companies. Zheng Li, PhD is Chief Science Officer and Director and was most recently Research Assistant Professor in the department of Bioengineering and the Associate Director of the National Simulation Resource Facility at the University of Washington. He brings strong experience in bioengineering and medical imaging with him and is the visionary behind the simulation and analysis tools for Systems Biology. Dr. Li is an active participant in the Human Physiome Project through his leadership in development the computer- based modeling platform at the National Simulation Resource Facility. As Chief Operating Officer and Director, Neil Fanger, PhD brings tremendous leadership, management, and partnering experience to Teranode. Dr. Fanger was most recently Professional Staff at Cell Systems Initiative, University of Washington, where he bridged biological research with computer science and mathematics. Dr. Fanger has numerous publications and patents, and is a co-investigator on the NIH grant. His biotechnology experience includes developing new technologies, identifying drug targets through experimentation, and designing drug therapeutics for clinical trial evaluation at Corixa and Immunex.