IBM Corp's Life Sciences Unit and MDS Proteomics Inc (MDSP) have entered into a multi-faceted collaboration that will see the two firms launch research projects and establish a publicly available bioinformatics database available to researchers worldwide. As part of the agreement, IBM will make an equity investment in MDSP and become a preferred supplier of hardware, software and services. The two firms will work towards creating a public research database of protein analyses available to researchers in industry and universities. MDSP, a two-year old, majority-owned subsidiary of MDS Inc, has already created an integrated functional proteomics and drug discovery platform to develop new therapeutic drugs and diagnostic products. It's estimated that proteomics requires 1,000 times more data and computational capacity than the human genome, making the collaboration an attractive opportunity for both firms. Functional proteomics encompasses the study of protein location, interaction, structure and function and aims to identify and characterize proteins present in normal and diseased biological samples. IBM's contribution to the Biomolecular Interaction Network Database (BIND) consists of cash, hardware, software, expertise and other in-kind payments. MDSP also has access to leading-edge mass spectrometry technology through its sister firm MDS Sciex, as well as expertise resident in MDS Protana (Denmark) and MDS Ocata. The latter is led by Dr Tony Pawson of Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto. In April 2000, MDS closed an $82-million private placement in MDSP, which valued the latter at $600 million. It is expected to announce an initial public offering within the next several weeks....