Phenome Networks, a plant breeding management and analytics software company has launched Project Unity ― a collaborative web-based network designed to host, manage, analyze and share phenotypic and genotypic studies of plants and animals. Project Unity lets researchers privately link and correlate their results with the world’s data, unleashing research insights through big data analytics. Researchers can connect their entities (genotypes, phenotypes and markers) to common ontologies and maps and get immediate access to the entire amazing wealth of research data from leading universities.
“The idea that Project Unity promotes of having a single platform for managing and sharing germplasm, phenotypes and genotypes is very important for both scientific and teaching purposes,” says Todd Wehner, professor at North Carolina State University and a watermelon and cucumber breeder.
Data loaded into Project Unity is private and can be accessed only by the person who uploaded it. Sharing of data sets, either with specific users or with the public is fully upon the user’s discretion. Project Unity simplifies the analysis process of phenotypes and genotypes, creates standardization and allows smart comparison among different data sets, eventually leading to better understanding of genes’ effects on phenotypes.
The platform is currently in beta and free of charge for academic use. Later in 2015, it will be upgraded to include full plant breeding management functionality.
