n544  0315  10 Feb 83
BC-GENEBIZ-02-10
    By Tom Ashbrook
    (c) 1983 Boston Globe (Field News Service)
    PHILADELPHIA - The age of computer-aided design and computer-aided
manufacturing (CADCAM) is coming to genetic engineering.
    IntelliGenetics Inc. of Palo Alto, Calif., late this spring will
begin deliveries of a 32-bit computer and software package that will
put a potent combination of genetics data and computer graphics into
the hands of biotechnology's gene splicers.
    The new product will feature a 17-inch video screen tied to an
extensive scientific data bank and software that will allow molecular
biologists to manipulate video representations of minute genetic
material in their search for the keys to production of new drugs and
industrial products.
    The IntelliGenetics computer package, which will cost about $35,000,
is expected to speed research in a field where the infinite variety
of gene component combinations makes the search for maximum
efficiency in cloning and production methods highly time-consuming.
    Viewed against a backdrop of increasingly sophisticated automation
in selected areas of biotechnology, the new system points to a
not-too-distant time when researchers sitting at computer consoles
will be able to investigate and clone existing forms of life and
create the genetic foundations for new ones.
    ''This will start bringing to genetic engineering what CADCAM
systems brought to auto engineering,'' said Paul W. Armstrong,
director of molecular biology for IntelliGenetics. ''You're seeing a
marriage of instrument technology and high-powered computer
equipment.''
    END
    
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