Accelrys Releases Discovery Studio® 1.6

Accelrys, Inc. has announced the shipment of Discovery Studio^® 1.6, recent version of its suite of life science modeling and simulation tools for lead discovery and optimization.

Discovery Studio 1.6 includes additional functionality in the areas of structure-based design, protein modeling, simulations, analysis, and visualization.

This release also includes the integration of Discovery Studio 1.6 with Accelrys’ open pipelining platform, SciTegic Pipeline Pilot, for automation and extensibility.

The combination of Discovery Studio 1.6 and Pipeline Pilot is designed to provide the ability to create and manage computational protocols that capture and automate data processing routines.

Users can access protocols for protein modeling, receptor-ligand interactions, and simulation through either the Discovery Studio or Pipeline Pilot interface.

Pipeline Pilot's open architecture is designed to enable the creation and automation of customized protocols that can include diverse components, while Discovery Studio lets users access and execute those protocols from a graphical environment and subsequently visualize, analyze, and export results.

A host of visualization enhancements in this release help users optimize their working environment and gain further insight about their structures.

Other developments include a CHARMm-based docking refinement algorithm, ability to save and re-use forcefield files, functionality for automated homology model generation and a rich graphical interface to GOLD-a genetic algorithm-based docking program from Accelrys partner, Cambridge Crystallographic Data Centre (CCDC).

CCDC Development Director Robin Taylor commented on the new GOLD interface, "Customers using programs from different software vendors need them to work together smoothly, and have a right to expect vendors to cooperate in achieving this."

"We are therefore delighted that Accelrys has provided a rich graphical interface in Discovery Studio to GOLD, allowing Discovery Studio users transparent access to our popular docking software."

"Feedback from beta testing of Discovery Studio 1.6 has been very positive," said Accelrys' President and Chief Executive Officer Mark J. Emkjer.

"The availability of robust functionality from one interface, combined with ongoing scientific development and an open architecture that enables integration of software from other providers, makes Discovery Studio a powerful solution for easily accessing the diverse range of software today's researchers need."