Sigma(R) Life Science Announces the Next Generation of the Award-Winning 'Your Favorite Gene Powered By Ingenuity' Research Portal

ST. LOUIS, April 13 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Sigma® Life Science, the innovative biological products and services brand of Sigma-Aldrich® (Nasdaq: SIAL), today announced a significant expansion to its web-based biological research portal for exploring dynamic gene-based content, Your Favorite Gene Powered By Ingenuity (http://www.wherebiobegins.com/yfg). The latest version of Your Favorite Gene Powered By Ingenuity adds a biologically relevant literature search, gene regulation and variation viewers, expression study results, clinical trials, detailed disease relationships, and biochemical compound interactions related to the researcher's gene of interest.

These additions build upon the January 2009 release, which brought together Sigma-Aldrich's leading Your Favorite Gene search engine and Ingenuity Systems' Knowledge Base, the world's largest repository of biological and chemical networks. The expansion complements the suite of dynamic biological pathways, interaction networks, and gene overviews containing up-to-date, manually curated findings from Ingenuity.

"We launched Your Favorite Gene Powered By Ingenuity to serve as a leading destination for researchers and students exploring diseases, functions and gene pathways," said Dr. David Smoller, president of Sigma-Aldrich's Research Biotech business unit. "This expansion allows us to bring the broadest collection of relevant biological information in one place and match it to our comprehensive portfolio of products, enabling researchers to quickly find the products they need to perform their experiments."

"After a very successful initial launch, researchers told us that they wanted access to more information," added Kyle Brueggeman, Sigma-Aldrich's product manager for Your Favorite Gene Powered By Ingenuity. "We have responded to that need by adding not only content but also greater functionality that allows researchers to quickly connect with information that is directly relevant to their research."

Your Favorite Gene Powered By Ingenuity provides researchers with the capability to model and evaluate prospective experiments in the context of previously published scientific literature, and provides streamlined access to Sigma-Aldrich's extensive portfolio of validated shRNAs, siRNAs, Prestige Antibodies® powered by Atlas antibodies, bioactive small molecules, CompoZr® ZFNs, and induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells. The portal is free for all researchers and students, and can be accessed at http://www.wherebiobegins.com/yfg

To interact with the biocommunity on topics directly related to Sigma Life Science tools and techniques, please visit Your Favorite Gene on Twitter (http://twitter.com/YourFaveGene) or the YFG Facebook® Fan Page (http://Facebook.com/YourFaveGene). To add genes, your publications, or biological information to your Facebook profile, visit http://apps.facebook.com/yourfavoritegene.

About Sigma Life Science: Sigma Life Science is a Sigma-Aldrich brand that represents Sigma's leadership in innovative biological products and services for the global life science market and offers an array of biologically-rich products and reagents that researchers use in scientific investigation. Product areas include biomolecules, genomics and functional genomics, cells and cell-based assays, transgenics, protein assays, stem cell research, epigenetics and custom services/oligonucleotides. Sigma Life Science also provides an extensive range critical bioessentials like biochemicals, antibiotics, buffers, carbohydrates, enzymes, forensic tools, hematology and histology, nucleotides, amino acids and their derivatives, and cell culture media.

About Sigma-Aldrich: Sigma-Aldrich is a leading Life Science and High Technology company. Its biochemical and organic chemical products and kits are used in scientific research, including genomic and proteomic research, biotechnology, pharmaceutical development and as key components in pharmaceutical, diagnostic and other high technology manufacturing. Sigma-Aldrich has customers in life science companies, university and government institutions, hospitals, and in industry. Over one million scientists and technologists use its products. Sigma-Aldrich operates in 38 countries and has 7,700 employees providing excellent service worldwide. Sigma-Aldrich is committed to Accelerating Customers' Success through Innovation and Leadership in Life Science, High Technology and Service. For more information about Sigma-Aldrich, please visit http://www.sigma-aldrich.com.

About Ingenuity Systems: Ingenuity Systems enables researchers to model, analyze, and understand complex biological and chemical systems foundational to human health and disease. All of Ingenuity's products and services have one common goal -- to provide relevant context and understanding to life science researchers. The Ingenuity products include pathways analysis software and knowledge bases for life scientists and bioinformaticians, in addition to business solutions focused on semantic search and enterprise knowledge management infrastructure. Ingenuity was founded in 1998 and is headquartered in Redwood City, California with offices in Germany, Switzerland, France, the United Kingdom, and Japan. www.ingenuity.com.

Sigma-Aldrich, Sigma, CompoZr and Prestige Antibodies are trademarks of Sigma-Aldrich Biotechnology L.P. and Sigma-Aldrich Co. Facebook is a trademark of Facebook Inc.  Ingenuity is a trademark of Ingenuity Systems.  Twitter is a trademark of Twitter, Inc.

SOURCE Sigma-Aldrich