Chicago, IL, Beverly MA, and Wolfenbüttel Germany.  Integrated Genomics Inc. and BIOBASE GmbH announced today that they have signed a collaboration agreement to expand and curate Integrated Genomics’ ERGO™ microbial genomic database.  BIOBASE scientists in Bangalore, India will add manually-curated functional gene annotations and pathways to the existing ERGO genomic database.  This agreement further expands the custom curation services BIOBASE offers its customers.

Currently ERGO contains more than 3.1 million non-redundant gene sequences in 1,242 genomes in the database.  These proteins are linked together into more than 6,300 metabolic and non-metabolic pathways which, together with detailed prokaryotic and eukaryotic functional overviews, provide a biochemical and metabolic reconstruction based on each organism’s genome.

“ERGO contains the largest database of annotated microbial genomes.  The expert curation from BIOBASE will add additional high quality annotations and pathways, providing a more complete systems level understanding of organism physiology for our customers,” said Dr. Vinayak Kapatral, IG’s Vice President of Business Development. 

Scott MacDonald, Manager of Marketing and Communications at BIOBASE added: “Our expertly curated protein and pathway databases combined with our in-silico customer curation services are a natural compliment that will significantly expand the future content of the ERGO system.  In addition, this alliance will provide valuable genomic links to our protein data and expand our presence in microbial sciences.”

About BIOBASE GmbH

BIOBASE is the leading provider of biological databases, knowledge tools, and sophisticated software for the life science industry. BIOBASE products are cutting edge and known for their scientific soundness and high quality They include a comprehensive portfolio of powerful database products, as well as customized databases and analysis of customer data with the help of our proprietary resources. The proprietary content of our databases provides the highest-quality data for the customers' analyses.

BIOBASE is headquartered in Wolfenbüttel, Germany and has offices in Beverly, MA, USA and Bangalore, India.

About Integrated Genomics, Inc.

Integrated Genomics provides a full range of products and services to support research in microbial genomics, biochemistry and gene expression. These products and services are based on ERGO™, the most advanced and comprehensive bioinformatics suite for microbial genomics on the market. ERGO contains the largest available integration of microbial genome data, including genome-derived metabolic reconstructions and representing the chemical reaction networks of metabolic pathways. 

Integrated Genomics is headquartered in Chicago, Illinois, USA.