(openPR) - Hyderabad, India, May 04, 2010 — Ocimum Biosolutions, a leading global integrated genomics company, today announced that it has partnered with Jivan Biologics to provide sequencing-based transcriptome profiling services. With this partnership, Ocimum will venture into RNA based services, especially transcriptome profiling, leveraging Jivan Biologics's industry-leading bioinformatics infrastructure, experience and technology. Ocimum and Jivan will jointly provide services in the area of exon mutation studies, splice studies, digital gene expression as well as other novel events.

High-throughput analysis of transcriptome profiles has become a standard tool in clinical research. This concept has been applied mostly in the study of cancer in an effort to deduce patterns of gene expression that predict tumor progression and facilitate risk stratification of patients at an early stage of the disease. The ultimate goal is to be able to analyze transcriptome profiles in individual tumor samples and to use this information to tailor therapies. There is an increasing adaptation of this application in plants, especially in model organisms like Arabidopsis, rice and other useful crops.

Ms. Anu Acharya said, “We see this partnership as an opportunity to advance the use and value derived from our BioIT services throughout the research community. Combining Ocimum’s expertise in the genomics arena with Jivan’s strengths in RNA sequencing and expression will empower the research community in getting better insights into gene expression studies.”

Dr Subha Srinivasan said, “As sequencing costs drop, transcriptome sequencing is expected to replace microarrays for measuring gene/transcript expression and exome sequencing for identifying disease specific coding mutations. This partnership will enable Jivan to leverage Ocimum’s global market reach and successful BioIT services to market its mature transcriptome profiling technologies and services using NextGen RNA sequencing”.

About Jivan Biologics Inc.

Jivan is a bioinformatics service company focusing primarily on providing services in the area of transcriptome profiling. Jivan operates its business from Larkspur, California. Jivan is the first US Company to provide transcriptome-wide profiling services in the US in a platform independent fashion.

Over a decade, since the completion of the human genome sequencing, Jivan has developed a robust infrastructure to profile state specific RNA variations in 30 plus organisms. The infrastructure includes development of the first dynamic reference transcriptome. Jivan has launched extensive supporting software infrastructure including SpliceZoom™, a gene model browser; Splice-Fold™, a software package to analyze differential splicing from microarray intensity data and/or read counts from RNA-seq; SplicePCR™, a database of millions of primer pairs specific to alternative splice events for downstream validation. The suite of products includes protein family-specific, application specific and transcriptome-wide microarrays and capture arrays.

Jivan's mature and complete solutions for transcriptome profiling allow Jivan to take a lead in the business of transcriptome profiling using second generation sequencing. Jivan is solidly positioned for partnerships in areas such as cancer biomarker research, drug efficacy markers, and adverse drug reaction using RNA-seq to profile transcriptomes.
For more information, please visit www.jivanbio.com/index.php.

For media enquiries, please contact:
Ms. Dhanya Menon
Phone: +91-40-66986700
E-mail: pr@ocimumbio.com

Ocimum Biosolutions is a global integrated genomic services company with operations in Hyderabad, India and Gaithersburg, MD. We provide comprehensive (research level and GLP-compliant) genomic services, reference databases, and LIMS solutions. Our distinct platform "Research as a Service" (RaaS) allows complete outsourcing of genomics – from storing biological samples and performing on demand DNA and RNA based services to validating biomarkers using our proprietary databases and providing data and bioinformatic analysis. We have been chosen as a global preferred outsourcing provider for more than 75% of top 25 Phama and biotech companies plus leading research institutes. Our partners recognize our expertise for understanding disease mechanisms in correlation with discovery, prioritization of gene targets and biomarkers, and sample analysis for clinical studies.

Dhanya Menon
Corporate Communications Manager
Ocimum Biosolutions
Road No 1, Banjara Hills
Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh 500034
Phone:+91-40-66986700
Email: dhanya.m@ocimumbio.com