ISRAEL: AN ISRAELI BIO INFORMATICS COMPANY IN TEL AVIV TAKES LEAD IN COMPUTER SOFTWARE FOR DECIPHERING DNA

Record ID: 400650

  • Title: ISRAEL: AN ISRAELI BIO INFORMATICS COMPANY IN TEL AVIV TAKES LEAD IN COMPUTER SOFTWARE FOR DECIPHERING DNA
  • Date: 27th June 2000
  • Summary: TEL AVIV, ISRAEL (JUNE 27, 2000) (REUTERS) 1. WIDE COMPUGEN DNA RESEARCH LABORATORY 0.09 2. MV RESEARCHERS INSERTING DNA CELLS INTO LABORATORY FLASK 0.19 3. CU CELLS INSERTED INTO FLASK 0.22 4. SV CELLS PLACED IN CENTRIFUGE 0.34 5. BV LABORATORY RESEARCHERS WORKING AT COMPUTER WITH GENE DATA 0.40 6. CU GENE DA
  • Embargoed: 12th July 2000 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: TEL AVIV, ISRAEL
  • Country: Israel
  • Reuters ID: LVA2O0UEXT21XPPC0D45NG887I22
  • Story Text: An Israeli bio-informatics company based in Tel Aviv
    thinks that it can soon cash into the Humane Genome project.

    They say they have the computer software for deciphering the
    human DNA blueprint and fighting mans worst diseases.



    Now that the secret to human life is out, with the
    mapping of the human gene structure announced on Monday (June
    26), an Israeli company says it is in a unique position to
    take the next step.

    Based in the heart of Israels thriving high tech
    community, Compugen develops mathematical computations for
    deciphering the Humane Genome and so helps pharmaceutical
    companies come up with drugs for treating diseases.

    Scientists working on the Human Genome Project announced
    that they had decoded the 3.1 billion sub-units of DNA
    governing human biology.

    The announcement has refreshed interest in biotechnology
    companies and could provide a better market for public
    offerings.

    The Israeli company combines mathematicians and biologists
    in a research facility that bridges the two fields.

    Chief executive officer of Compugen Eli Minz, an
    ex-military man, says his company has a unique ability to
    recruit staff from a large pool of young people just released
    from the Israeli army who have worked in the high tech fields.

    "What we want to achieve is to provide much better
    software to analyse and decipher gnomic data that a large part
    of it and an important part of it is of the humane genome that
    has just
    been completed.

    As I said we have just finished the first phase of a kind
    of understanding of how this machine that is the humane body
    works. The humane genome is the blueprint but again it is an
    encrypted message and we still need to decipher it and
    determine which parts are connected to cancer to
    cardiovascular disease and Alzheimer and this will not be done
    without the combination
    of mathematics and biology," Minz said.

    Compugen software is able to analyse the information
    received from the Humane Genome project and pinpoint specific
    genes responsible for human diseases.

    Minz says that even ageing is a sort of disease that using
    this research scientists can eventually overcome.

    But for now Minz is concentrating on providing better and
    faster computations of human DNA.

    "What happened yesterday was a very important milestone.

    What we have in our hands is an encrypted message. We finally
    have this message at hand but we now need to decipher it and
    this is what Compugen knows how to do," Minz added.

    The company is considering going public on Nasdaq in light
    of the Human Genome Project announcement.


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