Ongoing Bioinformatics Research at Natural Selection, Inc. is featured in RNAi News

La Jolla, CA – In an article titled, “New Algorithm Designed to Detect MicroRNAs: Creator Seeks Collaborators,” Natural Selection, Inc.’s research efforts in the detection of miRNAs were featured in the June RNAi News.

With the recent award of a National Science Foundation grant to develop machine learing tools for functional RNA gene detection, Natural Selection, Inc. will use its expertise in computational intelligence techniques to develop a bioinformatics software tool for pharmaceutical researchers. The RNA detection tool will utilize neural networks and pattern recognition optimization techniques that use evolutionary computation.

Dr. Gary Fogel, Vice President and leader of bioinformatics efforts at Natural Selection, Inc., was quoted as he explained how his techniques will be a such a useful method for pharmaceutical scientists, “ ‘There’s lots of genomic sequence and there’s only a few places that are really important to look at. So, we’re taking the best model we can evolve and then applying it to genomic sequences and saying: ‘Where are the microRNAs that we really want to find’ or ‘Where are areas in the genome that are likely to be microRNAs?’ That’s the key that will come out of this — a tool for pharmaceutical research that can be used to hone in on new, unannotated sequence[s] [to find] regions that we should be looking at.’”

The article also noted Natural Selection’s desire to commercialize its miRNA neural network.

Read the RNAi News article to learn more.

Natural Selection, Inc. was founded in 1993 to address complex problems in industry, medicine, and defense. The company possesses unique expertise in computational intelligence techniques, including evolutionary computation, neural networks, and fuzzy logic. The corporation's research efforts support the discovery of new pharmaceuticals, the automated detection and diagnosis of breast cancer from film-screen mammograms, optical character recognition, and a variety of military and industrial projects.

For more information, please contact:

Dr. Gary B. Fogel
Vice President
Natural Selection, Inc.
3333 N. Torrey Pines Ct.
Suite 200
La Jolla, CA, 92037
tel: (858) 455-6449
fax: (858) 455-1560
gfogel@natural-selection.com