• New Alignment Method to Speed Up De Novo Assembly of Whole Genomes

    Bio-IT World News Brief | A paper posted this week to the preprint server bioRxiv describes MHAP, a new tool that can reportedly assemble whole genomes de novo from long-read sequencing data hundreds of times faster than previous workflows.

    Aug 15, 2014

  • FDA Plans to Introduce Web Portal for Tracking Device Submissions

    Regulatory Focus | The FDA's Center for Devices and Radiological Health (CDRH) is piloting a program that would let companies track the progress of medical devices and diagnostic tests submitted for premarket approval through the agency's review process.

    Aug 15, 2014

  • Transcriptic Aims to Make the Biology Lab Programmable

    Bio-IT World | The Menlo Park startup Transcriptic is now hiring out its robotics lab to automate life science tasks — but its real innovation is a programming interface that lets users customize their lab procedures down to the smallest pipetting step.

    Aug 13, 2014

  • Modular Brain Model Joins Neurons in Three Dimensions

    New York Times | Scientists at Tufts University have produced a three-dimensional model of the brain in which rat neurons can be grown for months at a time in the lab.

    Aug 12, 2014

  • Pistoia Alliance Forms Expert Group on Controlled Substance Legislation

    Bio-IT World News Brief | The Pistoia Alliance, an industry group that addresses non-competitive problems shared by stakeholders in drug development, today announced the launch of an expert community to streamline how pharma companies and their partners track the laws governing the use and distribution of chemical substances worldwide.

    Aug 11, 2014

  • Pharma Investors Express Support for Biosimilars

    Pharmalot | A large investor group has been circulating a document asking pharmaceutical companies to pledge certain measures to foster the takeup of biosimilars in the U.S., including the acknowledgement of safety data from Europe.

    Aug 11, 2014

  • DNAnexus, AllSeq Share HiSeq X Ten Data

    Bio-IT World News Brief | The Garvan Institute, one of the earliest users of the "$1000 genome" HiSeq X Ten platform, has provided two whole genome datasets for public analysis, through a partnership with DNAnexus and AllSeq.

    Aug 8, 2014

  • Data Virtualization Powers Next Generation Sample Intelligence

    Bio-IT World Contributed Commentary | With more than one billion samples stored in biobanks around the world, research advancements, genomics and biomarker development, and reduced research budgets are all driving the need for unified sample intelligence.

    Aug 8, 2014

  • The Genomics of Infectious Diseases

    Bio-IT World | The Genome Center for Infectious Diseases (GCID) at the University of Maryland in Baltimore is dedicated to bringing new genomics technologies to bear on the bacteria, fungi, and parasites that cause disease in humans and livestock. One of the first targets: artemesinin-resistant Plasmodium falciparum, the parasite that causes the most deadly type of malaria

    Aug 7, 2014

  • Tumor Cells Shedding their DNA Fingerprints

    Nature News | Circulating tumor DNA--released into the blood when a tumor cell dies--has the potential to tell us far more about the various mutations in cancers than just tissue biopsies.

    Aug 5, 2014

  • NIH Announces Last Round of Advanced DNA Sequencing Grants

    Bio-IT World News Brief | A new four-year program of grants to organizations developing DNA sequencing technologies, totaling $14.5 million, will bring to a close the Advanced DNA Sequencing Technology initiative that has been funded by the National Human Genome Research Institute for over a decade.

    Aug 5, 2014

  • 100,000 Genomes Project Expected to Meet Goal with New Funding

    Science Insider | U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron has announced that Genomics England, the publicly-owned company created one year ago with the mission of sequencing 100,000 human genomes, will receive the funding to reach its goal by the end of 2017.

    Aug 4, 2014

  • What You Need to Know About the FDA's Push to Regulate Laboratory Developed Tests

    Bio-IT World | On Thursday afternoon, the FDA announced that it plans, for the first time, to regulate laboratory developed tests in the same way it does other diagnostics. Bio-IT World looks at the proposed regulations and what comes next.

    Aug 1, 2014

  • Craig Venter on the State of Genomics

    Technology Review | Craig Venter talked to MIT's Technology Review about genomics and  his new hire--the former head of Google Translate. When asked about how we're doing in genomics, Venter was terse.

    Aug 1, 2014

  • July News and Product Briefs

    Bio-IT World | News and product releases from around the industry, including new research initiatives in autism, lung cancer, malaria, and Phelan-McDermid Syndrome, and a new device for isolating circulating tumor cells.

    Jul 31, 2014

  • Pad Pipetter Eases Tedious Lab Work

    Bio-IT World News Brief | The Yaniv Erlich lab at MIT's Whitehead Institute, famous for its pioneering work in "genome hacking," has released an app to help lab technicians with complex pipetting procedures.

    Jul 30, 2014

  • Cambridge-Based Emulate Plans to Jumpstart Organ-on-a-Chip Market

    Bio-IT World | Emulate is not the first company to test the drug industry’s readiness for organs-on-chips, but after five years incubating at Harvard’s Wyss Institute, it’s entering the field with big industry partners, a plug-and-play product suite, and a toehold at the FDA.

    Jul 30, 2014

  • 23andMe Gets $1.4m from NIH, Publishes Parkinson's Research

    Bio-IT World | 23andMe announced this morning a two-year grant of almost $1.4 million from the National Institutes of Health to expand development of the company’s database and research engine, and its participation in a large-scale GWAS study of Parkinson's disease.

    Jul 29, 2014

  • Cloud Weakness Exploited to Launch DDoS Attacks

    Computerworld | Attackers can target Amazon EC2 instances by exploiting a vulnerability in distributed search engine software, Computerworld is reporting. Researchers have found new variants of a Trojan program for Linux that launches denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks running on EC2 instances.

    Jul 28, 2014

  • Testing an Accelerated Path for Biosimilars

    Bio-IT World News Brief | For the first time, the FDA has accepted an application for a generic version of a biologic drug under the new regulatory pathway established by the Biologics Price Competition and Innovation Act of 2010.

    Jul 28, 2014