Mascot Proteomics Software Ported to IBM’s AIX Operating System
Matrix Science today announced that Mascot®, the market leader in protein identification software, is now available for IBM’s AIX® 5L UNIX operating system. Porting to AIX was a joint effort between London based Matrix Science and IBM’s Chemistry and Life Sciences Solutions Development Division, in Poughkeepsie NY.
Mascot enables protein identification using mass spectrometry data, a core technology in proteomics. The search procedure is data-intensive, requiring extensive statistical calculations to be performed while streaming through very large sequence databases, such as dbEST or the draft assembly of the human genome.
AIX 5L provides an open, standards based UNIX operating environment that is supported by a range of IBM eServer pSeries systems from entry-level servers and workstations through to powerful clusters and supercomputers.
"We are delighted to have an AIX version of Mascot," said David Creasy, Technical Director of Matrix Science. "AIX is both robust and scalable, providing an ideal platform for high throughput proteomics studies. Our customers are searching data sets containing hundreds or even thousands of mass spectra against multi-gigabyte sequence databases. To keep pace with the rate at which modern instruments generate data, it is essential for the workload to be efficiently distributed across multiple, fast processors."
As part of its support for pSeries systems, Mascot has been tested on IBM’s powerful p690, code named Regatta, which features IBM’s innovative system-on-a-chip design, with each chip containing two one-gigahertz-plus processors, a large memory cache and I/O interconnected with other components using a new high performance distributed switch design.
"AIX running on IBM eServer pSeries systems provides the scalability and performance needed to power the complex searches and data-intensive operations required by Matrix Science’s Mascot mass spectrometry application," said Kristian Thyregod, vice president, product marketing, IBM eServer pSeries.
About IBM pSeries and AIX 5L
IBM eServer pSeries servers run AIX 5L, the industry’s most open UNIX operating environment. AIX provides increased levels of integration, flexibility and reliability essential for meeting the high demands of today’s e-business applications. The operating system is fully integrated to support existing 32- and 64-bit hardware systems in their full range of scalability, with key internet technologies such as Java included as part of the base operating system. A strong affinity between AIX and Linux permits popular applications developed on Linux to run on AIX with a simple recompilation. For more information, visit http://www.ibm.com/servers.
About Matrix Science
Matrix Science has developed a niche market with bioinformatics products and services in the fields of mass spectrometry and proteomics. Currently one of the hottest areas of life science research, proteomics studies the entire protein make-up of a cell to determine which proteins are linked to certain diseases. In recent years, mass spectrometry has become the method of choice for protein identification and characterisation, analysing large numbers of samples at high speed. Matrix Science has distribution agreements with several leading mass spectrometer manufacturers, and Mascot has been licensed by nine out of the ten largest pharmaceutical companies as listed in Scrip’s 2000 Pharmaceutical Company League Tables. Further information can be found on the Matrix Science web site at http://www.matrixscience.com/
Mascot is a registered trademark of Matrix Science Limited. All other company, product and service names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners.