AB SCIEX announces cloud computing project and commercialisation award winner

AB SCIEX and Illumina have announced the OneOmics project - an exclusive partnership to bring together SWATH-based, next-generation proteomics (NGP) and next-generation sequencing (NGS) tools in a cloud computing environment. The AB SCIEX SWATH Proteomics Cloud Tool Kit suite of applications will be hosted in BaseSpace, Illumina’s applications store and cloud-based informatics community dedicated to advancing genomic analysis, at www.basespace.com.

The partnership enables BaseSpace to be used as a single location for genomics and proteomics big data. With fast, secure, streamlined analysis of complex multi-omics data sets, the solution will help advance biomarker discovery and aid research into diseases such as cancer, diabetes, Alzheimer’s and heart disease.

The AB SCIEX SWATH Proteomics software solves the ‘missing data problem’, wherein traditional ‘shotgun’ proteomics measures an incomplete set of proteins that are difficult to reproduce. It makes reproducible proteome research feasible across many samples and is further enhanced through integration with Illumina NGS technologies.

AB SCIEX President Rainer Blair said the software “allows thousands of proteins to be examined at once with almost no method development - and now, with our cloud-based applications, customers can process data 50 times faster”. The toolkit brings a growing list of BaseSpace apps to extract biological insight from SWATH proteomics mass spectrometry data, including:

• Protein Expression Extractor - for processing raw mass spectrometry data
• Protein Expression Assembler - for protein fold-change analysis
• Protein Expression Browser - to visualise results in biological context
• Protein Expression Analytics - for data quality review

“These new proteomics tools add systems biology capabilities to BaseSpace, creating an easy-to-use, cloud-based environment that enables rapid data analysis for a growing range of applications,” said Nicholas Naclerio, Senior Vice President, Corporate Development and General Manager, Enterprise Informatics for Illumina. “Now, BaseSpace is making informatics accessible to anyone searching for a truly interdisciplinary, systems-level understanding of biology.”

AB SCIEX has also announced that its director of reagent R&D, Dr Subhasish “Babu” Purkayastha, has been awarded the Human Proteome Organization (HUPO) Science and Technology Award for efforts in commercialisation of isobaric labelling for protein quantification with the development of iTRAQ chemistries. The award is presented for efforts to commercialise a technology, product or procedure which makes the life of the proteomics researcher easier.

Dr Purkayastha is said to be a leader in enabling protein expression analysis, quantitation and multiplexing by mass spectrometry. A key figure in the commercialisation of breakthrough technologies such as ICAT, cleavable ICAT and iTRAQ (both 4-plex and 8-plex), he has played a crucial role leading a collective vision bringing multiplexing to the market.

“Our team of chemists, software developers, MS application scientists and our partners are the reason why we are able to commercialise the first multiplex solution in 2004 so customers could recognise the benefits of multiplexing,” said Dr Purkayastha. “We made it easy for scientists to adopt the technology and focus their research on advancing the knowledge of biology with more relevant data and consistent results. Our goal is to provide tools that help our customers to design and perform studies that address key biological questions such as identifying biomarkers that goes a long way in developing treatments and tests for diseases such as Alzheimer’s, sepsis and cancer, among others.”

Dr Purkayastha was presented with his award at the HUPO 2014 conference in Madrid.