• News and Notes from TriCon 2015

    Bio-IT World | The Molecular Medicine Tri-Conference is being held in San Francisco this week, and several updates and new products have emerged already. For live coverage of the event, follow @BioITWorld and the hashtag #TriCon on Twitter.

    Feb 19, 2015

  • Playing the Markets: ClusterK Launches Cloud Scheduler, Open Source GATK Pipeline

    Bio-IT World | Life is too short to wait for GATK to finish. A new company, ClusterK, is releasing its genomics pipeline to illustrate how complex workflows like the Broad Institute’s GATK can be run efficiently—and much faster—on the cloud thanks to grid scheduling and clever use of Amazon's spot markets.  

    Feb 18, 2015

  • Scientists unveil map of epigenome a second genetic code

    Yahoo Finance | Researchers unveiled the map of the "epigenome" in the journal Nature on Wednesday, alongside nearly two dozen related papers. The human genome is the blueprint for building an individual person. The epigenome can be thought of as the cross-outs and underlinings of that blueprint: if someone's genome contains DNA associated with cancer but that DNA is "crossed out" by molecules in the epigenome, for instance, the DNA is unlikely to lead to cancer. As sequencing individuals' genomes to infer the risk of disease becomes more common, it will become all the more important to figure out how the epigenome is influencing that risk as well as other aspects of health.

    Feb 18, 2015

  • BIOVIA Launches Biologics Informatics Program

    Bio-IT World | BIOVIA, the life sciences-oriented subsidiary of Dassault Systèmes formerly known as Accelrys, today introduced a new informatics platform for companies developing biologic drugs, in an announcement at the Molecular Medicine Tri Conference in San Francisco.

    Feb 17, 2015

  • BioNano Teases Out the Genome's Structural Quirks

    Bio-IT World | BioNano’s Irys platform doesn’t sequence DNA. Instead, it’s all about assembly: sorting out exactly where different parts of the genome fit into chromosomes. The company says Irys is the only commercially available system that can handle structural variations in large, complex genomes.

    Feb 16, 2015

  • Maverix Biomics and Elsevier Sign NGS Data Interpretation Agreement

    Bio-IT World News Brief | Maverix Biomics signed a strategic agreement with Elsevier this morning at CHI’s  Molecular Medicine Tri-Conference in San Francisco. The Maverix Analytic Platform will complement Elsevier’s Pathway Studio sample-to-insight workflow and incorporate biological data from Elsevier’s biology journals by providing easy, push-button data analysis.

    Feb 16, 2015

  • 2015 Benjamin Franklin Award Finalists Announced, Voting Open

    Bio-IT World | The 2015 Benjamin Franklin Award for Open Access in the Life Sciences is now open for voting by Bioinformatics.org winners. Voting will close on February 23, and the winner will be announced in April at the Bio-IT World Conference and Expo.

    Feb 12, 2015

  • Invitae Raises $102 Million for 'Universal' Genetic Test

    Bio-IT World News Brief | Invitae, a genetic testing company founded by former Genomic Health CEO Randy Scott, raised $102 million today in an initial public offering.

    Feb 12, 2015

  • Kickstarter Launched for Bea The Film, a Documentary About Hugh Rienhoff’s Daughter

    Bio-IT World | Hugh Rienhoff and his daughter Bea have talked publicly of their clinical odyssey searching for a cause for Bea's ultra-rare condition. Now, Bea is to be the subject of a documentary currently raising funding on Kickstarter.

    Feb 12, 2015

  • New York’s Chief Medical Examiner Seeks to Lead in DNA Research

    New York Times | Dr. Barbara Sampson was named New York's chief medical examiner late last year, becoming the first woman to head the office as it seeks to right itself after high-profile mistakes.

    Feb 10, 2015

  • A $34 Smartphone Gadget That Can Detect HIV in 15 Minutes

    WIRED | When it comes to high-risk, infectious diseases, early detection can make all the difference in getting ill patients some much-needed treatment. In some cases, it may even help stem an outbreak. This becomes incredibly critical in the developing world, where there are fewer resources to go around.

    Feb 10, 2015

  • Roche Acquires German Genetic Data Company

    Bio-IT World News Brief | Roche has added another company to its Roche Sequencing Unit. Signature Diagnostics AG, a privately held company based in Potsdam, Germany, will be joining other recent Roche acquisitions Bina Technologies and Genia Technologies.

    Feb 9, 2015

  • One Codex and Microbiology's Search Problem

    Bio-IT World | Reference Genomics, one of the first biotech startups funded by Silicon Valley's famous seed accelerator Y Combinator, is trying to revamp how microbial geneticists search through large reference databases of genomes with its online platform One Codex.

    Feb 9, 2015

  • Among New York Subway’s Millions of Riders a Study Finds Many Mystery Microbes

    New York Times | Researchers at Weill Cornell Medical College mapped DNA found in New York's subway system, finding that almost half the genetic material did not match any known organism.

    Feb 6, 2015

  • NHGRI Updates Patient Consent Guidance for the Precision Medicine Age

    Bio-IT World | The National Human Genome Research Institute has announced an update to its Informed Consent Resource, to reflect its new preference for obtaining the "broadest possible sharing permissions" for genomic data as studies increasingly rely on very large patient cohorts to understand personal health risks.

    Feb 4, 2015

  • PeerJ Launches PeerJ Computer Science

    Bio-IT World | Today, PeerJ Computer Science opens its digital doors for the first preprint submissions. Bio-IT World spoke to Jason Hoyt, Co-founder and CEO; and Peter Binfield, Co-founder and Publisher of PeerJ and PeerJ Computer Science about their goals for the new journal. 

    Feb 3, 2015

  • A National Push for Shared Clinical Data

    New York Times | In the wake of President Obama's proposal for a coordinated Precision Medicine Initiative, Gina Kolata writes that the program's real promise is not mass sequencing or data collection, but a database architecture that would allow patient information from multiple research projects to be smoothly combined.

    Feb 3, 2015

  • January News Briefs

    Bio-IT World | News and product releases from around the industry, including new analysis technology for Sequenom's non-invasive prenatal tests.

    Feb 3, 2015

  • A New Beginning for Semiconductor Sequencing

    Bio-IT World | Semiconductor sequencing, the basis for the Ion Torrent line of whole genome sequencers, has been a bit of a flop on the market, but the technology's inventor Chris Toumazou is betting big on miniaturization at his company DNA Electronics — starting anew with point-of-care tests for infectious disease.

    Feb 2, 2015

  • Obama Announces $215m Precision Medicine Investment for NIH, FDA

    Bio-IT World | President Obama will outline this morning his proposed investments to improve health and treat disease through precision medicine. The president will set out a $215m plan to build infrastructure needed to accelerate discovery in precision medicine, and includes funding for NIH and the FDA. 

    Jan 30, 2015