Evogene Announces Launch of ATHLETE(TM) 4.0 Gene Discovery Computational Technology

Evogene Ltd. announced the launch of ATHLETE(TM) 4.0, a new version of its technology for discovery of novel genes for improving plant performances. To date, Evogene has discovered through earlier versions of the ATHLETE(TM) and validated in plants over 3,000 novel genes relating to key plant traits, such as yield, drought tolerance, fertilizer utilization and plant disease resistance. Patents have been filed or granted with respect to all of these discoveries.

The new ATHLETE(TM) 4.0 relies on a series of proprietary tools and algorithms, which substantially accelerate Evogene's gene discovery capabilities by integrating multiple levels of plant data types. ATHLETE(TM) 4.0 incorporates genomic data from over 200 plant species and more than 4,000,000 genes, thus enabling a more comprehensive and accurate cross-species discovery capabilities. As with previous versions of ATHLETE(TM), this version utilizes Evogene's powerful Information Technology (IT) infrastructure, which has been built to support one of the largest agbio-data sets worldwide.