“Through microarray analysis, we can study the regulation of the animal’s entire genome under different environmental and disease conditions,” said Bertone. “We utilized OSC’s TimeLogic DeCypher system for large BLAST sequence comparisons of equine Expressed Sequence Tags (ESTs) with human and mouse genome databases to identify optimal gene sequences for microarray chip development.” “This is the first time we’ve been able to apply functional genomic studies to a large mammal, and believe the technique will enhance our understanding of human orthopedic diseases such as osteoarthritis,” Bertone continued. Dr. Eric Stahlberg, OSC Senior Systems Manager, remarked, “The DeCypher system is installed within the Sun Center of Excellence for High Performance Computing Environments and processes hundreds to thousands of sequence analyses per day.” Stahlberg continued, “The DeCypher system processes high-speed bioinformatics analyses through parallel algorithm implementations on Field Programmable Gate Array chips, providing a modern, cost-effective resource for genomics researchers at OSU and throughout Ohio.” Gu compared thousands of sequences from horse to the GenBank sequence database at the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI). “Comparing the horse ESTs to GenBank used to take several hours on my desktop workstation, which made repeating the analysis for each new release of GenBank too time-consuming. Using the TimeLogic DeCypher system, I now complete the searches in under 10 minutes, so our data stays current.” “TimeLogic’s goal is to deliver genome-scale sequence analysis capability to researchers through our modular DeCypher biocomputing platform. We are very pleased to be expediting innovative research through OSC’s DeCypher system,” commented Joseph Fernandez, CEO for TimeLogic Corporation and parent company Active Motif. “As Dr. Bertone’s research staff begins exploring horse protein functional classification, we expect that DeCypher’s hidden Markov Model profile analysis tools will be highly valuable,” Fernandez added.