SCIENCE

SAN DIEGO, CA -- Entropia Inc., a leading provider of PC-based distributed computing technology to the pharmaceutical industry and TurboGenomics, a leader in high-performance bioinformatics software, Tuesday announced their collaboration to run TurboGenomics' TurboBLAST accelerated sequence comparison tool on the Entropia high-performance distributed computing platform. This will allow TurboBlast to be run on large corporate networks of many thousands of PCs, enabling fast analysis of databases that were too large to effectively analyze before. The Entropia platform provides a host of features that will make TurboBLAST particularly attractive in enterprise networking environments, including scalability well beyond the typical 1000 node UNIX or Linux cluster; airtight security to seal off the application from other files on each desktop machine; and a centralized, fault tolerant resource application manager. The Entropia-compatible version of TurboBLAST is expected to be available by the third quarter of 2001. Genomics and proteomics research require searching very large sequencing databases. The sizes of these databases continue to increase exponentially. As a result, the computational loads imposed by BLAST and other software tools to analyze these databases have outstripped the resources available at most bioinformatics facilities. TurboBLAST solves this problem by partitioning BLAST computations into manageable tasks and distributing them to a cluster of computers that executes tasks in parallel, thereby dramatically accelerating the BLAST application. The Entropia platform takes TurboBlast one step further, extending this capability to the largest corporate networks, for even greater computing power. "Working with Entropia opens the doors to using TurboBLAST in even more computing environments, particularly in large enterprise networks," said Gregory E. Gardiner, Ph.D., TurboGenomics president and CEO. "The Entropia platform's scalability, careful management of CPU and disk usage, and security features are all tailored specifically for the corporate enterprise environment. We are excited about the opportunities this partnership provides for accelerating bioinformatics research in the enterprise." Entropia's distributed computing technology harnesses the unused processing cycles of networked desktop PCs and applies them to solving large, computationally intensive problems in the enterprise network environment. The average PC sits idle as much as 95% of the time, even while running typical software applications. Companies can leverage this massive untapped aggregate resource to run large applications without having to invest in additional hardware or IT staff. The Entropia platform is scalable from just a few machines to thousands and even millions of PCs. "The fit between TurboBLAST and the Entropia distributed computing platform is ideal," said Robert North, Entropia CEO. "Working together, TurboGenomics and Entropia will provide a solution that can accelerate genomics and proteomics research by orders of magnitude, using existing PC networks of up to tens of thousands of machines. Entropia is continually investing in partnerships like this one to provide a more complete solution to advance research efforts. Our goal is to support as many applications as possible to give customers the highest degree of computing capability." TurboGenomics provides high-performance software and services to the life sciences community, delivering scalable, automated solutions for post-genomic bioinformatics. The company's products include TurboBLAST(TM), its accelerated implementation of NCBI BLAST; and TurboBench(TM), its enterprise bioinformatics platform. Both products are based upon proven supercomputing technology that enables them to operate in parallel on heterogeneous computer clusters. Formed in March 2000 as a spinoff of Scientific Computing Associates Inc., the pioneer in commercial applications of parallel and distributed computing technology, TurboGenomics is privately held and is based in New Haven. For additional information about TurboGenomics and its products, visit the company's Web site at www.turbogenomics.com. Entropia's distributed computing technology harnesses the vast unused processing power of PCs on corporate networks and over the Internet. The technology, scalable to millions of PCs, delivers computing power surpassing supercomputers at a fraction of the cost. Companies can achieve this power using the PCs they already own, dramatically increasing the ROI on their computing investments. Commercial applications include critical medical and pharmaceutical research, financial services, product development, shipping route optimization, and more. Entropia also powers AIDS research (www.fightaidsathome.org) and economic research (www.safermarkets.org) on its public Internet computing grid. For additional information visit www.turbogenomics.com or www.entropia.com