ViaLogy Corp. Issued U.S. Patent Covering BioChipAnalysis Technique.

Business Editors & Health/Medical Writers

BIOWIRE2K

PASADENA, Calif.--(BW HealthWire)--Oct. 24, 2000

ViaLogy Corp., a privately-held subsidiary of ViaSpace Technologies, LLC, announced today that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office issued U.S. Patent No. 6,136,541

The pioneering technique covered by this patent exploits active interferometric computing for the analysis of DNA-, RNA-, and peptide nucleic acid (PNA) based biochip/microarrays.

Specifically, the technique analyzes a dot spectrogram representative of quantized hybridization activity of oligonucleotides in a biological sample to identify mutations. A resonance pattern is generated which is representative of nonlinear resonances between a stimulus pattern associated with a set of known mutations and the dot spectrogram. The resonance pattern is then interpreted to yield a set of confirmed mutations by comparing resonances found therein with predetermined resonances expected for the selected set of mutations.

"This patent provides enabling technology that dramatically increases the detection sensitivity, accuracy and repeatability of genetic analyses using biochips," said Dr. Sandeep Gulati, inventor of the '541 patent. "Furthermore, this technique provides a universal solution that can be applied to all microarrays such as those produced by companies such as Affymetrix, Inc.; Agilent Technologies, Inc.; Corning, Inc.; Hyseq, Inc.; Incyte Genomics, Inc., and Motorola, Inc."

"We are excited by our first patent to issue in a series that will allow us to become a leader for biochip-based diagnostic and prognostic applications. By delivering advanced software and computational tools for biochip systems, ViaLogy will play an important role in genomics, diagnostics, disease management, and therapy effectiveness monitoring," said Dr. Carl A. Kukkonen, President of ViaLogy Corp.

About ViaSpace Technologies, LLC

ViaSpace Technologies, LLC is a Pasadena, CA area technology commercialization company that specializes in bringing lower risk, advanced stage technologies into the commercial marketplace.

ViaSpace, a spin-off of the NASA/Caltech Jet Propulsion Laboratory, currently operates three subsidiaries based, in part, on technologies from NASA/Caltech Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Other technologies under development include infrared sensors, B2B secondary market financial instrument exchanges, sensors, optical networking infrastructure, and fuel cells. ViaSpace is funded, in part, by an investment by the Hewlett-Packard Company (NYSE:HWP). For more information on ViaSpace Technologies or its portfolio of companies, please call (626) 296-6284 or e-mail: ck3@viaspace.com, or visit: www.viaspace.com.