ACADEMIA

OAKLAND, CA -- DoubleTwist, Inc. today announced that the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) has purchased a three-year, site-wide subscription to its Prophecy(TM) product suite. The subscription includes access to DoubleTwist's exclusive annotated human genome database, a toolkit for integrating customer data with the DoubleTwist database, and Gold-level subscriptions to the company's online service, DoubleTwist.com. Financial details were not disclosed. "At the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB), our goal is to provide our investigators with the bioinformatics tools necessary to support ongoing research by allowing them to integrate and utilize information becoming available from genomic sequencing projects with information from more traditional sources such as scientific journals. Our choice of the DoubleTwist Prophecy system is based on the comprehensive annotation of the human genome that DoubleTwist supplies, along with their easy-to-use, but powerful data visualization and interpretation software," said Elliot Lefkowitz, Ph.D., Director, UAB Molecular Genetic Bioinformatics Facility and Research Associate Professor, UAB Department of Microbiology. "Together, these tools will allow us to query the available genomic databases and ask questions regarding known genes as well as mine the data for previously unknown genes that might be of interest," said Tim Townes, Ph.D., Professor and Chairman, UAB Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics. "In addition, the ability to integrate our own in-house sequence and analytical data into the Prophecy system using DoubleTwist's Prophecy ToolKit will allow us to take even greater advantage of these bioinformatic tools, thus supporting the wide variety of research projects on campus." "We are proud to add another leading research institution such as University of Alabama at Birmingham to the growing list of customers for our genomic databases and tools," said John Couch, Chairman and CEO, DoubleTwist, Inc. "We look forward to an ongoing relationship that will provide UAB's respected research community with unrestricted access to the most comprehensive and up-to-date genomic information available and tools designed to empower their scientists to make more rapid discoveries." DoubleTwist, Inc. is a leading provider of genomic information and bioinformatics tools to the life sciences industry. The Company's mission is to empower the life scientist by simplifying and accelerating genomic research. For more information visit http://www.doubletwist.com or http://main.uab.edu/