SRS has been developed over the past eight years at the EMBL in Heidelberg, Germany and at the EMBL Outstation, the European Bioinformatics Institute (EBI) in Cambridge, UK. SRS is a query and navigation system that brings the world of biological databases together into a single interface and environment. Using SRS, scientists can ask unique queries across hundreds of public and private biological data collections, integrating the world of data into the daily research decision-making process. SRS has been installed in more than 40 commercial and 200 academic sites.  Under the agreement with EMBL, LION will continue to make SRS freely available to academic research groups, while focusing efforts on customer support and further development.

Existing commercial users of SRS will need to arrange for licenses with LION Bioscience. LION Bioscience will provide further development of the technology, customer service, technical support, and consulting services for the commercial SRS program. Commercial licenses for SRS should now be obtained from LION Bioscience (contact@lion-ag.de, or +49 (0) 6221 40380). The existing software licenses for all commercial installations of SRS will expire on February 28, 1999.

SRS is the brainchild of Dr. Thure Etzold who will lead the group at LION Bioscience Ltd., while maintaining an academic appointment at the EBI. Dr. Etzold commented, "This is a very exciting next-step for the SRS technology and the SRS team. LION is among the premier bioscience companies in the world with a specific focus on merging leading technologies with commercial informatics development. The company brings a technical, financial and customer support commitment to the SRS technology which will greatly accelerate the further development of the system."

Professor Fotis C. Kafatos, Director-General of the EMBL commented, "The EMBL, a leading research institution world-wide, is proud to have supported the research and development of SRS as an outstanding tool freely available to the research community.  The time has come to develop this technology to a degree of sophistication requiring the level of investment that is possible in the private sector. We are delighted that, consistent with our technology transfer policy, the commercialisation agreement with LION ensures free access to enhanced SRS technology for academic research. We expect continuing success for the SRS technology."

Dr. Friedrich von Bohlen, CEO of LION Bioscience AG added, "We are enthusiastic about our collaboration with EMBL that has led to this agreement. The licensing of SRS and the establishment of our subsidiary in Cambridge is vital to our vision of becoming the world-wide leader in integrating genomics and life science informatics technology. Furthermore, this acquisition is a clear demonstration of LION's commitment to build an integrated platform for accelerated target discovery and validation. Dr. Etzold is a tremendous addition to our first-class team of scientists, and we expect his group to make an enormous contribution to LION's integrated genomics technologies."