• FDA Loves Genetic Tests, If Accurate

    Bio-IT World Brief | In a comment on FDA's blog on Thursday, Jeffrey Shuren, Director of FDA’s Center for Devices and Radiological Health, again restated the Agency's concern with 23andMe's direct-to-consumers genomic tests. The issue, 
    "at the heart of our five-year effort to work with the firm 23andMe," he says, is accuracy.

    Jun 30, 2014

  • The Hunt for a New Human Reference Genome

    Bio-IT World | The human reference genome has served geneticists well since the completion of the Human Genome Project in 2003. But with new sequencing technologies and a unique cell line, a team attached to the Genome Reference Consortium is tinkering with a new "platinum genome" based on a single haploid sample, a reference that could better represent structural variants and the range of human haplotypes.

    Jun 30, 2014

  • Illumina Releases Long-Read Apps and Library Prep Kits

    Bio-IT World | Illumina is looking to expand its footprint in long-read sequencing applications, with big announcements this week about its TruSeq synthetic long-read technology.

    Jun 27, 2014

  • The UberCloud Experiment - Exploring Life Sciences in the Cloud

    Bio-IT World Guest Commentary | Cost savings, shorter time to market, better quality, less product failures: the benefits that engineers and scientists can expect from using technical computing in their research, design, and development processes can be huge. The UberCloud Experiment provides a platform for scientists and engineers to explore, learn and understand the end-to-end process of accessing and using Cloud resources, to identify concerns and resolve roadblocks.

    Jun 25, 2014

  • Sequencing the Strange Communities: Taking on Metagenomics

    Bio-IT World | In another look at the Hi-C process for sorting out disparate bits of DNA, Jonathan Eisen’s lab at UC Davis tweaks the Markov Cluster Algorithm to take on metagenomics. The results need further attention, but could be extremely useful for joining plasmids and chromosomes from the same species.

    Jun 24, 2014

  • Australian Research Institute IDs Novel Syndrome Variants with NextCODE Tools

    Bio-IT World News Brief | The ANZAC Research Institute in Sydney, Australia, has used NextCODE Health's Clinical Sequence Analyzer and Sequence Miner tools to ID novel sequence variants behind X-linked Charcot-Marie-Tooth syndrome (CMTX).

    Jun 23, 2014

  • 23andMe Seeks FDA Approval for Health Report on Single Condition

    Bio-IT World | Today, 23andMe's new chief legal and regulatory officer, Kathy Hibbs, announced that the company has submitted a 510(k) to the FDA, seeking approval to tell customers whether they carry mutations for the rare disease Bloom syndrome. The move signals a cooperative, incremental approach to restoring the 23andMe health reports that the FDA shut down last November.

    Jun 20, 2014

  • PacBio Users Share New Tools and Applications at Meeting in Baltimore

    Bio-IT World | At the annual Pacific Biosciences user group meeting in Baltimore, geneticists and bioinformaticians gathered this week to discuss how long-read sequencing is opening up previously intractable problems. Rapid de novo assembly of whole genomes was a major topic of conversation, while users unveiled new computational tools that greatly speed up long-read assemblies, and PacBio announced plans for updated chemistry and high-throughput HLA typing.

    Jun 19, 2014

  • HudsonAlpha and University of Alabama Birmingham Launch Center for Genomic Medicine

    Alabama.com | The HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology and the University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Medicine are expanding and formalizing their relationship as the UAB-HudsonAlpha Center for Genomic Medicine

    Jun 18, 2014

  • Scripps, USC Considering Joining Efforts

    San Diego Union-Tribune | The Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla and the University of Southern California are reportedly considering a merger or acquisition, under which Scripps would be acquired by USC.

    Jun 17, 2014

  • Myriad Challenges Pathway Genomics' BRCATrue Test

    Bio-IT World Brief | Ten days after Pathway Genomics announced its new BRCATrue test and its plan to donate $10 million worth of tests in its one for one program, Myriad Genetics filed a patent infringement suit against the company. While calling the suit "unwarranted", Jim Plante, Pathway Genomics' founder and CEO, also acknowledged that the lawsuit was "not unexpected."

    Jun 16, 2014

  • The Coming Wave of Generic Biologics

    Forbes | Matthew Herper examines the market for generic biotech therapies, which have sometimes been seen as more resistant to generic competition than chemically manufactured drugs.

    Jun 13, 2014

  • May-June News and Product Briefs

    Bio-IT World | News and product releases from around the industry, including Myriad Genetics donating cancer variants to PROMPT study, and the launch of MolecularHealth's cancer genotyping service.

    Jun 13, 2014

  • Moderna Remaking Itself as mRNA Startup Incubator

    Xconomy | With over $400 million on hand, Cambridge-based Moderna Therapeutics is revisiting its role in bringing mRNA-based therapies to market.

    Jun 12, 2014

  • NextCODE Brings the deCODE Data Architecture to Tumor Analysis

    Bio-IT World | NextCODE Health, the spin-off from deCODE genetics that launched last October, has continued to release new software tools based on deCODE's former diagnostic services. Its latest is a whole genome-scale tumor analyzer.

    Jun 12, 2014

  • First Reads from Nanopore Sequencers Becoming Public

    Bio-IT World News Brief | This morning, a trio of U.K. researchers released what may be the first publicly available read from an Oxford Nanopore MinION Sequencer.

    Jun 11, 2014

  • Autism Speaks Lands Google Partnership for Whole Genome Storage

    Bio-IT World News Brief | Today, Autism Speaks announced that Google has agreed to host the database of the AUT10K program, which plans to house 10,000 whole genomes of individuals with autism spectrum disorders and their families, alongside detailed clinical information.

    Jun 10, 2014

  • A Primer on the Early Development of the Human Microbiome

    Bio-IT World News Brief | This month, a review article appeared in Pediatric Allergy and Immunology that follows the typical growth of microbial communities living in and on humans over the first three years of life.

    Jun 10, 2014

  • New Method Aims to Sequence the Genomes of the Most Elusive Microbes

    Bio-IT World | A new twist on the popular Hi-C sequencing technique, pioneered at the University of Washington, may allow scientists to tease out the whole genomes of undiscovered microorganisms — even if they can't be separated from the other microbes they live with.

    Jun 9, 2014

  • Who Owns Genetic Data: It's Not Clear Cut

    Techonomy | You own your data. It's a repeated refrain as we navigate the new world of sequencing. But is it true? Meredith Salisbury argues probably not...right now anyway.

    Jun 6, 2014