WACO, Texas, Jan. 05, 2004 (PRIMEZONE) -- Health Discovery Corporation, Inc. (OTCBB:HDVY) today announced the completion of the acquisition of Fractal Genomics in San Francisco, California. Fractal Genomics was founded by Sandy Shaw, a former bioinformatics specialist at the University of California, San Francisco and former computer scientist and software engineer with over twenty years of experience at Bell Labs, Lockheed Electronics and the University of Hawaii. As part of the acquisition, Sandy Shaw has assumed the position of Vice-President-Fractal Technology with Health Discovery Corporation.
Health Discovery Corporation will immediately begin work on additional research discovery protocols utilizing the newly acquired, patent protected bioinformatics software technology, known as Fractal Genomics Modeling (FGM) to find, link and model patterns of similarity hidden in large amounts of information, such as the clinical databases currently used for diagnostic and drug discovery.
In addition, as a result of the Fractal Genomics acquisition, Health Discovery Corporation is preparing to begin validation studies of the recently discovered and patent protected set of leukemia genes, discovered using the newly acquired Fractal Genomic Modeling (FGM) technique, which was shown to separate ALL-T-cell leukemia from ALL-B-cell leukemia with 100% accuracy. This gene set, now the property of Health Discovery Corporation, was originally presented to the medical and scientific world by Dr. Herbert Fritsche, a world-renowned, expert in cancer markers and Professor at MD Anderson Cancer Center, at 31st Meeting of the International Society for Oncodevelopmental Biology and Medicine (ISOBM) in Edinburgh, United Kingdom.
"The completion of the acquisition of Fractal Genomics is a very significant first step for Health Discovery Corporation as we move aggressively forward with our business model of acquiring and developing unique tools for diagnostic and drug discovery, as well as, increasing our intellectual property portfolio of patent protected genes and proteins which we hope will become key biomarkers used both for diagnostic testing and as potential drug targets for devastating diseases like cancer, heart disease, diabetes and AIDS," stated Stephen D. Barnhill, M.D., Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Health Discovery Corporation. "The discovery, validation, and patent protection of these new biomarkers will help to solidify our position in the international diagnostic and drug discovery market."
"I am looking forward to joining the impressive and accomplished scientific staff at Health Discovery Corporation," remarked Sandy Shaw, founder of Fractal Genomics. "I welcome the opportunity to work closely with pharmaceutical and diagnostic companies worldwide to assist them in identifying novel proteins and pathways critical to diagnosing and treating patients."
This news release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27a of the Securities Acts of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Although the Company believes that the expectations reflected in such forward-looking statements are reasonable, it can give no assurance that such expectations will prove correct.