Title:

http://www.iobion.com/products/products.html

 http://demo.iobion.com/

Username: dirk.peg
Password: afda347f58

URL:

Date Reviewed: May 21st 2002

Description: Package to analyze microarray data

Strengths: The supplier will give you  demo which one is able to use for 7 days. I tried the demo where Hela cells were treated with three different types of drugs.

Control HeLa	Hyb_01_CTL_HeLa	HeLa Control Hybridization. No treatment.	3840 Spot	LEX.Cy3 CTL_HeLa	LEX.Cy5 CTL_HeLa
Drug A HeLa	Hyb_01R_Drug_A	6 hr treatment of HeLa Cells with Drug A. Fir	3840 Spot	LEX.Cy5 6_A_HeLa	LEX.Cy3 CTL_HeLa
Drug A HeLa	Hyb_01_Drug_A	6 hr treatment of HeLa Cells with Drug A. Fir	3840 Spot	LEX.Cy3 6_A_HeLa	LEX.Cy5 CTL_HeLa
Drug B HeLa	Hyb_01R_Drug_B	6 hr treatment of HeLa Cells with Drug B. Fir	3840 Spot	LEX.Cy5 6_B_HeLa	LEX.Cy3 CTL_HeLa
Drug B HeLa	Hyb_01_Drug_B	6 hr treatment of HeLa Cells with Drug B. Fir	3840 Spot	LEX.Cy3 6_B_HeLa	LEX.Cy5 CTL_HeLa
Drug C HeLa	Hyb_01R_Drug_C	6 hr treatment of HeLa Cells with Drug C. Fir	3840 Spot	LEX.Cy5 6_C_HeLa	LEX.Cy3 CTL_HeLa
Drug C HeLa	Hyb_01_Drug_C	6 hr treatment of HeLa Cells with Drug C. Fir	3840 Spot	LEX.Cy3 6_C_HeLa	LEX.Cy5 CTL_HeLa

As one can see the interface looks really nice.

It can also be used for clustering analysis.

Weaknesses: There is not really a good tutorial available which describes clearly what the possibilities are and how to use all the options. One has to download the manual separately so it's hard to work on the program and look up questions you might have. You have to read the whole manual before you understand the program. Also the software is not free. Cluster is a free program and could probably do the same. However data normalization and filtering are incorporated making the whole process probably a lot faster and easier to manipulate.

Comprehensiveness: It is extremely comprehensive all to me known manipulations possible with array datasets are possible.

Timeliness: It will probably take a week or so to get familiar with the program, how to upload the files and to convert them into the correct files

Ease of Use: It is relatively easy to use, I have been playing around with it for a few hours and it has nice features and excellent visual displays. This programs allows data manipulations and clustering and other analysis at the same time. Normally one first has to normalize and filter the data before it can be used in a clustering program.

Responsiveness: Very quick however the demo files only consist 1700 genes, I wonder how it would work with let's say 60.000 datapoints and 20 chips total.

Similar or Related Sites: Cluster

Overall Evaluation: 1 to 5 stars 4*

Reviewer: Michael Pegtel

Email:dirk.pegtel@tufts.edu