PALO ALTO, Calif.—Agilent Technologies Inc. in early March launched eArray 3.0, a secure Web portal that allows life sciences researchers to go online to design microarray customized to their specific research needs. While Agilent has long provided customized microarrays to its customers, according to the company, the portal is the first free, online tool specifically tailored for this purpose.

 

"This provides customers with an import window into the Agilent line of products and allows them a more

efficient method of generating their own microarrays," says Scott Harrison, custom microarray program manager for Agilent. "This will provide more research scientists with high-quality, reliable customized tools to address their individual research needs."

 

The eArray portal offers researchers access to Agilent's genomic content, annotation information and probe sequences.

 

Flexibility of the portal was important and Agilent has designed the system so researchers can design their microarrays using catalog probes from Agilent, their own probes or a combination of the two.

 

Future plans call for functions to allow researchers from around the world to form work groups and share data and information through the portal. In addition, visitors to eArray may have access to a much broader range of Agilent's products.