SCIENTISTS DEPEND ON SHARED DATA IN QUEST FOR CURES.

The many scientists researching HIV, liver disease and other subjects at the University of Washington can now use Spotfire Inc.'s DecisionSite(tm) software to combine and analyze data from laboratories all over the world in the quest for knowledge and cures.

The University of Washington (UW), one of the nation's top medical research institutions and a leader in genetic and microbiology research, has integrated Spotfire DecisionSite for Functional GenomicsTM with its own "home-grown" gene array database and analysis system. The combination results in a highly flexible database and data analysis system that integrates both internal and external proteomics and microarray data for UW's microbiology research.

"We needed a tool that would integrate effectively with our pre-existing database and other databases that we have in house. Spotfire's DecisionSite nicely fills that need," said Dr. Roger Bumgarner, director of the UW Center for Expression Array and assistant professor in microbiology. "The ability to integrate external experimental gene data with data from our own databases for expression analysis with very little work considerably broadens the scope of the research we undertake."

Scientists at UW analyze gene expression data to study a wide variety of biological issues. UW's work ranges from gaining a better understanding of Hepatitis C-induced liver disease to very basic molecular biology research. UW's scientists can use DecisionSite to harness the results of experiments that laboratories and universities all over the world make available over the Internet, but which are often locked in incompatible data formats. DecisionSite's versatility allows UW to drop in experimental data in any format, whether Microsoft Excel, proprietary database, flat file, etc., and compare and analyze it on the fly in DecisionSite's interactive visual environment.

DecisionSite's Guided Analytic(tm) applications provide an interactive visual environment for interpreting, capturing and sharing analyses of large amounts of data from disparate sources. The UW DecisionSite license extends to 100 researchers involved in gene expression data analysis.

"Science is a collaborative enterprise, but sharing large data sets is difficult because of a lack of standards - the problem isn't just that there is too much data, but the fact that so much of it is in incompatible formats," said Spotfire's CEO Christopher Ahlberg. "University of Washington is using DecisionSite's flexible analytic engine to tear down the technological barriers that separate good science from great science. It's very gratifying for us to know that Spotfire is helping to further some of the most data-intensive research undertaken at the organization."

About UW's Department of Microbiology

The Department of Microbiology at the University of Washington was founded in 1905. In 1946, the department became part of the newly established School of Medicine. It subsequently underwent rapid growth to become one of the premier biological science departments in the country. The department has a national reputation for high quality teaching and an international reputation for excellence in research. For more information, visit the department's Web site at http://depts.washington.edu/micro/research/.

About Spotfire

Spotfire(r) Inc. provides Guided Analytic applications and services that empower extended enterprises and their end-users to make faster, more effective decisions. More than 500 global 2000 customers and over 20,000 users work with Spotfire products worldwide. The company maintains U.S. headquarters in Somerville, Mass., and European headquarters in Goteborg, Sweden.

For more information, visit http://www.spotfire.com or call 617/702-1600 or 800/245-4211.