The area AnVil is responding to is bioinformatics. Billions of bytes of data are being produced by gene research, even as the U.S. Human Genome project works to identify all the approximate 100,000 genes in human DNA and determine the sequences of the three billion chemical bases that make up the double helix. While computer programs exist to mine that dense data, results are limited, with software unable to fully explore and describe the ways certain genes react to stimuli, such as drug treatments. That's where AnVil Informatics hopes to make a difference with software that allows for quicker analysis of data as well as ways to visually present that analysis. If you work on something and draw a picture, it helps you remember and look deeper into the problem itself, Grinstein said.
Imagery really speeds up the analysis process.
Where the software is expected to shine is in the testing of drugs on gene sets, in attempts to find out which genes react to which drugs positively or adversely. When they finish something they strive for, it s definitely a very nice feeling.