About us

History

MelanieTM is based on 35+ years of image analysis experience. The Melanie story started as a PhD project at the University of Geneva, back in 1983. This created the foundation for what is today a powerful 2D image analysis software used by researchers across the globe. Since then, the software is developed by the same dedicated team in Geneva, always striving to achieve the Swiss standards of quality and service.

The Melanie software package, together with the SWISS-PROT database established in 1986, and the PROSITE database launched in 1988 were the forerunners of what has become the SIB Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics in 1998. From its inception, SIB has grown into one of the leading data science organizations in the world. This gives the Melanie development team, as part of it, access to world class talent, expertise and technology, to offer the most relevant solutions.

Collaborations

Over the years, Melanie has been trusted and adopted by thousands of researchers in academia and industry and is constantly improved and maintained in collaboration with Cytiva. The image analysis application has attained a high level of maturity over the years and has evolved – based on new user requirements and technological innovations – into a solution that can be applied to a wide range of 2D gel and blot experiments. The Melanie Coverage module, for instance, is the latest addition to the software package and springs from collaborations and feedback from major biopharmaceutical and biotechnology companies as well as bioassay developers.

Our purpose

From the very beginning, our Melanie team intends to foster reliable discoveries for better science. Melanie therefore provides image analysis guidance and flexible tools to let you detect real differences in protein expression with high objectivity, sensitivity and confidence. This will improve the quality of your results, and help you draw powerful conclusions from your experiments.

About SIB

The SIB Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics is an internationally recognized non-profit organization, dedicated to biological and biomedical data science. Its data scientists are passionate about creating knowledge and solving complex questions in many fields, from biodiversity and evolution to medicine. They provide essential databases and software platforms as well as bioinformatics expertise and services to academic, clinical, and industry groups. SIB federates the Swiss bioinformatics community of some 800 scientists, encouraging collaboration and knowledge sharing.

The Institute contributes to keeping Switzerland at the forefront of innovation by fostering progress in biological research and enhancing health.

Did you know?

  • Melanie does not refer to a female relation of one of its authors. It stands for Medical ELectrophoresis ANalysis Interactive Expert. The software’s use now goes well beyond medical applications. But we think the rest of the name still characterizes the software pretty well.
  • Even now, some users tell us they miss the Swiss yodel that one could hear when closing earlier versions of Melanie. Are you one of those nostalgic souls? Then listen to it again here.