LifeMap Sciences, a Subsidiary of BioTime, Announces Release of MalaCards Version 1.06 With Greatly Improved Gene …

ALAMEDA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--LifeMap Sciences, Inc., a subsidiary of BioTime, Inc., announced today the recent release of MalaCards, Version 1.06. The new release is available at http://www.malacards.org/, and features greatly improved gene-disease associations. MalaCards is a database of human diseases and their annotations that is modeled on the architecture and richness of the popular GeneCards database of human genes (http://www.genecards.org/). The database consolidates disease data from 66 sources and in this version contains 19,663 disease entries, 11,808 of which include associated genes. LifeMap Sciences holds the exclusive worldwide license to market GeneCards and MalaCards from Yeda Research and Development Company Ltd., the commercial arm of the Weizmann Institute of Science.

MalaCards 1.06 includes the following features and improvements:

GeneCards, the Human Gene Compendium (www.genecards.org), has been updated to reflect the upgraded gene-disease associations.

The new MalaCards version further accentuates this databases role in providing users worldwide with a comprehensive birds eye view of human diseases and their gene connections, said Professor Doron Lancet, Ph.D., Head of the Crown Human Genome Center, at the Weizmann Institute of Science and principal investigator of MalaCards.

About LifeMap Sciences, Inc.

LifeMap Sciences (www.lifemapsc.com) core technology and business is based on its Integrated Biomedical Knowledgebase and discovery platform for biomedical research, which currently includesGeneCards: the leading human gene database;LifeMap Discovery, the database of embryonic development, stem cell research and regenerative medicine;MalaCards, the human disease database; and GeneAnalytics, a novel gene set analysis tool which leverages our Integrated Biomedical Knowledgebase. LifeMaps products are used in more than 3,000 institutions including academia, research hospitals, patent offices, and leading biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies.

LifeMap Sciences intends to continually improve the quality of its products, and is pursuing several new Internet and informatics products with substantial, rapid-revenue growth potential, leveraging its existing products and their large user base of life scientists. LifeMap also intends to extend its offerings to the field of mobile health via its subsidiaryLifeMap Solutions, Inc.

About the Weizmann Institute of Science and GeneCards

The Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel, is one of the world's top-ranking multidisciplinary research institutions. Noted for its wide-ranging exploration of the natural and exact sciences, the Institute is home to scientists, postdoctoral fellows, Ph.D. and M.Sc. students, and scientific, technical and administrative staff. In addition, visiting scientists and their families over 500 from 35 countries are regularly hosted at the Institute. The Institute was founded in 1934 following a donation to Dr. Chaim Weizmann, a noted biochemist and biotechnologist, who envisioned the establishment of a world-class scientific research center in Israel, and later also became the first President of the State of Israel. Weizmann Institutes Feinberg Graduate School, established in 1958, has 1000 M.Sc. and Ph.D. students enrolled in studies covering the Institutes five faculties: Biochemistry, Biology, Chemistry, Physics, and Mathematics and Computer Science. The Institutes technology transfer arm, Yeda Research and Development Co. was the first company of its kind in Israel, and is currently one of the most successful worldwide. Institute research efforts include the search for new ways of fighting disease and hunger, examining leading questions in mathematics and computer science, probing the physics of matter and the universe, creating novel materials and developing new strategies for protecting the environment. Particular excellence in bioinformatics and systems biology is manifested, among others, in the GeneCards project, initiated in 1996, under the leadership of Prof. Doron Lancet of the Dept. of Molecular Genetics, Head of the Crown Human Genome Center. A team of 10 led by Marilyn Safran continuously innovates and keeps GeneCards as a world-top human gene compendium, automatically mining and integrating 100 worldwide web resources.

About BioTime

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LifeMap Sciences, a Subsidiary of BioTime, Announces Release of MalaCards Version 1.06 With Greatly Improved Gene ...