A platform is for managing, integrating, and analyzing gene expression data. The platform includes a Run Time Engine(RTE) which provides more direct, quicker, and more efficient access to gene expression data through the use of memory mapped files. The platform also includes a workspace that is implemented in directories with data objects comprising XML descriptors coupled with binary data objects for storing gene and sample identifiers and input parameters for saved analysis sessions. The platform provides various Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) to a data warehouse, including a low-level C++ API, a high-level C++ API, a Perl API, R API, and CORBA API to access gene expression data from RTE memory mapped files. These APIs offer quicker and more direct access to the memory, thus improving the speed of overall operations.