CLC bio accelerates biomedical research with new RNA sequence analysis software

CLC bio, the world’s leading bioinformatics solution provider, today announced the release of version 2.0 of CLC RNA Workbench. Among a wide variety of new features, this new release brings user-friendly versions of partition function calculation for RNA secondary structure and minimum energy free scanning – functions previously only available through highly advanced scripting, are now available through a graphical interface for everyone working with RNA research.

Peter Johannes Steffensen, PhD in Mathematics and algorithm expert at CLC bio, states, "We have developed our own minimum free energy algorithm and graphical interface to scan for local structure content – a world's first! This feature is ideal for full genome scans of viruses or for scanning mRNA for the presence of structural signals. For scientists working with RNA biology this is a very smooth and fast feature for computing significant local RNA structures based on minimum free energy calculation."

Dr. Roald Forsberg, Senior Scientific Officer at CLC bio, continues, "Today RNA biology is becoming important in all areas of biomedical research. We are now introducing a graphical interface to view different applications of partition function calculations for RNA secondary structure – another world's first. With a few clicks of the mouse, scientists are now able to determine the probability for RNA structure elements like base pairs and unpaired regions. This is extremely useful for researchers who design molecules for RNA interference, and need to statistically test complex structure hypotheses."

By introducing a smooth and graphical approach to these functions, CLC bio helps accelerate viral biology research and reaffirms CLC RNA Workbench’s position in the market as the only integrated and professional solution which can help RNA researchers to a considerably more efficient workflow, and thereby save precious time in the research phases. Furthermore, researchers will get higher quality results, due to easy and user-friendly access to the cutting edge algorithms included in CLC RNA Workbench.