CSIRO touts tools at Bio

CSIRO Bioinformatics is taking its latest statistical toolkit to Bio, with the intention of tapping into the burgeoning microarray analysis market.

CSIRO has spent two years developing specialised tools for data analysis, and claims they are particularly suited to emerging technologies like microarrays. Dr David Mitchell of the Bioinformatics division said that compared to the kind of data analysis biotechnologists are familiar with – such as gene or protein sequence data – the new toolkit is very much more accurate.

“You can’t use the same tools for both”, he said. “Gene or protein sequence data requires very basic statistical analysis. Array data needs a whole new approach. For each sample, thousands of data points are gathered,” he said.

Mitchell asserted that drug companies could waste millions of dollars pursuing a drug target with no hope of making it through animal testing -- because key clues were missed through poor quality data analysis.

“There are biotech companies making critical decisions based on outmoded statistical tools. It’s a bit like using a shoe to hammer in a nail,” he said. “Unless you use the right tools on your data, you could either make an expensive mistake or miss important information.”

Other potential applications for the toolkit include toxicogenomics and pharamacogenomics, and CSIRO said several companies were considering using the technology for diagnostics.