Thousand Oaks, California, USA
September 10, 2014

Software engineers at Ceres, Inc. announced today that they are looking for life science specialists in various fields to test a cloud service edition of the company’s Persephone genome visualization application. Originally developed for in-house use, Persephone allows users to explore integrated genomics data types from multiple public sources as well as Ceres’ own custom genome annotations. There are also capabilities for integrating users’ own data.

“The bioinformatics market is experiencing rapid growth, but lacks common data formats and integrated solutions to control data overload. We believe the Persephone viewer can provide a common, standardized way to visualize data across the numerous analysis pipelines and software solutions currently available,” said Tim Swaller, Ceres’ Vice President of Genomics Technologies.

To sign up for the Persephone beta test team, life science, bioinformatics and information technology specialists should visit www.ceres.net/persephone. As part of the beta test program, participants will have access to the full capabilities of a pre-release version of Persephone CloudService and help shape its ongoing development and launch.

Ceres currently offers Persephone as a client-server installation, which has been licensed by multi-national life science companies. Internally, Ceres has utilized Persephone across a range of departments and functions including intellectual property, biotechnology research and development, marker-assisted breeding, bioinformatics and genomics technologies.

Persephone has been designed to display diverse data such as genetic maps, scaffolds, physical maps, gene models, synteny, QTLs, SNPs, RNA-Seq,  and SNP chip, among others. The software features an ultra-fast graphics-rendering engine that can load and visualize millions of SNP variants in seconds in client-server installations. The software can be used for plant, human, animal, microbe, and drug development, among other fields.

About Ceres

Ceres, Inc. is an agricultural biotechnology company that markets seeds for crops used in the production of renewable transportation fuels, electricity and bio-based products. The company also licenses its genetics technology, software and biotech traits to other organizations. Persephone is a trademark of Ceres, Inc.

Published: September 10, 2014