Annai Systems Provides Network Engine To UC Santa Cruz For Cancer Genomics Hub

LOS GATOS, Calif., May 1, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Annai Systems Inc. announced today that it has granted to the University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC) a multi-year license for the company's genomic network operating system (Annai-GNOS™).  The Annai network engine is now installed in a new 5-petabyte-capacity data repository, the UCSC Cancer Genomics Hub (CGHub), where it will enable high-speed, high-fidelity transfers and robust management of genomic data initially from major cancer genomics initiatives of the National Cancer Institute including The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA), a pioneering project involving more than 20 cancer types, and the Therapeutically Applicable Research to Generate Effective Treatments (TARGET) project, which focuses on the five most severe childhood cancers.  Through Annai-GNOS™, very large files of genomic sequence data may be rapidly, reliably and securely deposited in CGHub by participants of these consortia and accessed by authorized research groups around the world.

"We are proud that the first deployment of Annai-GNOS™ brings our industrial-strength network solution to a new, state-of-the-art genome data repository operated by UCSC—a perennial leader in the field of genomics and home of the Cancer Genomics Browser," said Lawrence Ganeshalingam, Annai's CEO.  "We look forward to seeing Annai-GNOS™ go on to meet the needs of researchers and clinicians who contribute to, and draw upon many other genome data repositories—large and small, private and public, on-site and cloud-based."

"Annai has been an exceptional partner in the development of CGHub," said Dr. David Haussler, Professor of Biomolecular Engineering at UCSC, who leads the CGHub project. "Their creativity is helping to set the stage for peta-scale cancer genomic analysis."

Annai-GNOS™ enables simultaneous transmission of hundreds of Big Data files (100's of GB each) at speeds up to multi-Gbits/sec, limited only by the input/output rates of client and networking environments.  The system embodies a highly fault-tolerant design that insures continuing availability of service in case of a single point of failure and automatic recovery of interrupted data transfers.  Sequence data and metadata are securely managed using three levels of protection:  user authentication, data access authorization, and secure data transfer over TCP/IP sessions using symmetric key encryption.  Configurable validation and consistency checks help automate curation and improve integrity of metadata.  NCBI SRA 1.3 XML metadata, along with a variety of other metadata formats, are accessible via a flexible search engine and RESTful Web Services.  Annai-GNOS™ is integrated with leading genome sequencing centers and analysis tools. 

Annai Systems Inc., located in California's Silicon Valley, is a private company that develops and commercializes high-performance network solutions to support the collaborative needs and workflows of genomic research and medicine.

Contact: Laura Lange, Annai Systems (408) 395-3621

SOURCE Annai Systems Inc.