Scientists at the Deutsches Krebsforschungszentrum (DKFZ) - the German Cancer Research Center - in Heidelberg, Germany, are using Tibco Software's enterprise analytics platform for research.
This includes looking at the mechanisms behind the causes of cancer, the development of custom-tailored drugs and understanding the types of cancer caused by infections.
The project group, headed by research professor Dr Michael Boutros, analyses cancer-relevant signal pathways in cells through high-throughput RNAi screening.
The group aims to systematically find new genes that play a role in the development of cancer.
The researchers individually 'switch off' genes through RNAi and analyse the effect that the disconnection has on the cells.
The high-throughput screenings through different cell-based assays and automated microscopy result in large amounts of data that have to be statistically analysed.
Tibco Spotfire analytics supports the detailed presentation of large datasets that originate from this process and allows scientists to accelerate the research process with powerful and interactive visualisations.
A team led by Dr Michael Pawlita examines the influence of infections on the development of cancer.
They continue the research work initiated by Prof Harald zur Hausen, DKFZ chairman.
Zur Hausen proved that Human Papillomavirus (HPV) plays a crucial role in the development of cervical cancer and his research led to the development of the first vaccine against cancer.
Researchers have suspected that other forms of cancer might also be triggered through other infections.
In order to identify these pathogenic agents and develop suitable vaccines, the team searches for corresponding antibodies and evaluates large amounts of information from blood samples.
With Tibco Spotfire, prominent patterns can be identified more easily, while the number of necessary analyses can be substantially reduced.
Tibco Spotfire is employed by researchers in the Chemical Biology Core Facility, which is jointly used by the DKFZ, the European Molecular Biology Laboratory-EMBL (Europaisches Laboratorium fur Molekularbiologie) and Heidelberg University.
The service unit, headed by Dr Joe Lewis, supports researchers from all three institutions in the screening of small molecules.
Small molecules can serve as molecular tools for fighting biologically important target molecules.
Analysing their structure and effects can result in the development of new and custom-tailored drugs.
The work at the facility includes the development of assays for medium-throughput screening and the screening of substance libraries consisting of up to 50,000 connections and support in the characterisation of connections.
The researchers at the core facility appreciate the flexibility of Tibco Spotfire in processing data and offer the platform for use by specific project teams.
The visual interactive analytics platform allows scientists to spot and track outliers at a glance and to understand the information in context.
By analysing large amounts of data, Tibco Spotfire allows researchers a high degree of automation while also providing the ability to ask and answer questions, interpret the results and provide highly focused interpretations.
