Convey Computer and Bluebee Partner to Strengthen Genomic Data Analysis Offering

RICHARDSON, TX - Sep 8, 2014 - Bluebee, a next generation sequencing data analysis provider and Convey Computer Corporation, the leader in hybrid-core computing for accelerating data analytics, today announced a distribution agreement that strengthens both companies’ bioinformatics offerings. The partnership promotes increased innovation for bioinformatics technologies and advanced solutions for next-generation sequencing research.

The distribution agreement allows Convey to resell the Bluebee Genome Analytics solution, enabling Convey to expand its offering in the bioinformatics and life sciences domain. The agreement also enables Bluebee to incorporate the existing Convey bioinformatics components into its integrated pipeline of high-performance, computer-based tools for whole-genome diagnostics.

Convey’s bioinformatics suite is made up of a number of personalities including the Convey GraphConstructor™ for de novo short read assembly, Smith-Waterman for local sequence alignment, and Burrows-Wheeler Aligner for fast reference mapping. The implementation of these algorithms on Convey’s innovative hybrid-core architecture has demonstrated impressive performance gains compared to commodity clusters. 

Bluebee is currently extending its offering to include an accelerated BWA MEM algorithm for aligning long query reads, as well as a variant calling module on Convey’s hybrid-core server architecture. These new solutions will allow geneticists to get more accurate information faster, which leads to the potential for clinical genetic testing along with other time-sensitive types of genomic diagnosis.

“Partnering with Bluebee reflects our ongoing commitment to the bioinformatics and life sciences community,” explained Bruce Toal, CEO of Convey. “As specialists in high performance genomics, Bluebee will continue to provide the innovative solutions our customers need to optimize their bioinformatics workflows.”

“Bluebee is pleased to partner with Convey,” said Hans Cobben, CEO of Bluebee. “Genetic analyses are currently undergoing extreme changes as a result of revolutionary developments in next-generation DNA sequencing technology. While personalized treatment comes with great promises, routine clinical implementation of whole genome-based diagnostics is still faced with major technological and biological challenges.  With this partnership, we strongly believe we can make the difference.”

Convey’s ground breaking hybrid-core computing architecture tightly integrates advanced computer architecture and compiler technology with commercial, off-the-shelf hardware-namely Intel® Xeon® processors and Xilinx® Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs). Particular algorithms, such as the Burrows-Wheeler Aligner are optimized and translated into code that’s loaded onto the FPGAs at runtime to accelerate applications that use these algorithms. The systems help customers dramatically increase performance over industry standard servers while reducing energy costs associated with high-performance computing.

About Convey Computer Corporation

Convey breaks power, performance and programmability barriers with the world’s first hybrid-core computer-a system that marries the low cost and simple programming model of a commodity system with the performance of a customized hardware architecture. Using the Convey hybrid-core technology, customers worldwide in industries such as life sciences, research, big data, and the government/military are enjoying order of magnitude performance increases. http://www.conveycomputer.com/

About Bluebee

Bluebee is a provider of High Performance Computing solutions, enabling software to run orders of magnitude faster on hybrid computer architectures and at substantial lower cost. Bluebee’s Genome Analytics Platform is a comprehensive platform, combining best-in-class tools and components to enable efficient whole-genome pipeline processing. Bluebee is a privately funded company founded by an international and experienced team of the leading Delft University of Technology (the Netherlands) and Imperial College London (United Kingdom). More information may be found at: www.bluebee-tech.com

Convey Computer and the Convey logo are trademarks of Convey ComputerCorporation in the U.S. and other countries. Bluebee, the Bluebee Genome Analytics Platform and the Bluebee logo are trademarks of Bluebee Holdings BV.