MAG, Monsanto Form Discovery Partnership

Molecular Applications Group (MAG; Palo Alto, CA) and Monsanto Co. have signed an agreement under which MAG will apply their proprietary technology to support Monsanto scientists in identifying, selecting, and prioritizing targets for agricultural and pharmaceutical applications. Terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

In its work with Monsanto, MAG intends to employ three proprietary and complementary techniques that rely on Hidden Markov Models, protein threading, and phylogenetic analysis. The core technology is captured in three proprietary components: SHMMs, ATHOS, and BETE.

"In combination," says Paul Thomas, executive director of research at MAG, "these algorithms produce a discovery system that greatly increases the reach of remote homolog detection, as well as the ability to classify novel genes in the context of related sequences. In addition, this system is highly scaleable, and will enable Monsanto to rapidly process large amounts of data."

Monsanto is a life sciences company.

Molecular Applications Group helps pharmaceutical, biotechnology, and agricultural companies to better understand the role of proteins, and to therefore accelerate the identification, selection, and prioritization of drug targets.

For more information: John Andrews, Executive, VP and COO, Molecular Applications Group, 607 Hansen Way, Building 1, P.O. Box 51110, Palo Alto, CA 94303. Phone: 650-846-3570. Fax: 650-846-3595. Email: john@mag.com.