Multinational medical and scientific manufacturer PerkinElmer has announced the launch of its Search Genius application, designed for the SharePoint platform. It aims to provide researchers with a single software system to search, save and share unstructured data stored throughout their organisation, thereby making enterprise-wide knowledge accessible for more productive and effective workflows.

It allows researchers to use both text and structured searches of reports and technical documents stored using the SharePoint framework and E-Notebook system, as well as text searches of the Internet.

Scientists can also save their search results and easily create links and annotations that document their ideas and facilitate collaboration.

"Researchers in life sciences, whether in academia or commercial biopharma, are increasingly finding that simply generating data and analysis are not enough to provide the workflow efficiency and productivity they need to succeed," said Michael Stapleton, General Manager, Informatics, PerkinElmer.

"The ability to find information that correlates with their immediate and long-term requirements, as well as to utilise and share it across their organisation, is becoming a paramount ongoing need. Search Genius provides researchers with access to data that enables them to make decisions faster, based on its ability to collect, consolidate and analyse, so they can act on disparate pieces of information that may otherwise not be thought of or known to be important or relevant."

The Search Genius platform utilises Microsoft's FAST Search Server 2010 to create an out-of-the-box solution for researchers that is not separated and isolated from other applications. Researchers can use the Search Genius platform to carry out text and structure searches from the SharePoint platform as well as from inside PerkinElmer's E-Notebook system, while simultaneously conducting and documenting their research.

The application also allows for the extension of search capabilities to include any data sources that can be indexed by FAST Search Server 2010 for SharePoint, including Electronic Laboratory Notebook (ELN) content from other vendors and from scientific journals. Completely integrated into the FAST Search Server 2010 for SharePoint framework, the Search Genius system requires no additional IT overhead.

The Search Genius platform allows researchers to easily save the hits that result from their searches, something that is difficult to do with most web search engines. This makes it possible to organise their research ideas within an organisational space that includes text and structure searches from multiple sources. Scientists can also annotate those hits with notes to help them recall the inspiration behind their search - not just where they found the information.