• AstraZeneca Cuts More Jobs; Signs $240M+ Agreement with Moderna

    Bio-IT World Roundup | Lots of news for AstraZeneca this morning. The company announced plans to cut 2300 sales and administrative jobs and plans to focus on respiratory, inflammation & autoimmunity; cardiovascular & metabolic disease; and oncology. The company also announced a major agreement with Moderna Therapeutics, starting with a $240 million upfront payment for mRNA research.

    Mar 21, 2013

  • March Product and News Briefs

    Bio-IT World | News briefs for March including updates from Ingenuity, GeneInsight, University of Auckland, and the Research Resonance Network. New products from SoftGenetics, Accelrys, Cynvenio Biosystems, SGI, PerkinElmer and more.

    Mar 21, 2013

  • Big Data Freeway in San Diego

    New York Times | Larry Smarr and his team at UC  San Diego are about to open the “Big Data freeway system” for next-gen data projects including genomic sequencing. The new network--Prism--is based on an optical switch developed by Arista Networks.

    Mar 20, 2013

  • Following the Gleevec Blueprint

    Xconomy | Blueprint Medicines has reunited the team behind Gleevec—Nick Lydon, Brian Druker, and Charles Sawyers. The startup, backed with a $40 million Series A financing from Third Rock Ventures and Fidelity Biosciences in 2011, believes now is the time for more drugs like the cancer blockbuster.

    Mar 20, 2013

  • A Look at Gene Patents and Myriad

    PBS | On April 15, the Supreme Court will again hear a case against Myriad Genetics' gene patents. Though the legal debate is unlikely to end there, the decision could have implications for personalized medicine. Even the researcher who was originally responsible for the Myriad patent of BRCA2 has changed his tune.“

    Mar 20, 2013

  • DNA Editing Protein

    Forbes | They were trying to find a better way to make yogurt, but instead, they stumbled across a bacterial immune system and a protein that finds very specific DNA sequences. George Church's lab proved that the protein could make multiple, specific edits to a cell's DNA at once. From here, the possibilities are endless.

    Mar 19, 2013

  • Complete Genomics Acquisition Final

    Bio-IT World News Brief | BGI-Shenzhen has completed its acquisition of Complete Genomics through its wholly-owned subsidiary, Beta Acquisition Corporation.

    Mar 19, 2013

  • FindZebra: A Search Engine for Rare Disease

    Technology Review | FindZebra bests Google at the rare disease hunt. The new search engine is dedicated to identifying rare diseases using an index of databases including the Online Mendelian Inheritance in Man database and more.

    Mar 18, 2013

  • Bits and SNPs: Atul Butte and Medicine in the Era of Big Data

    Bio-IT World | One of the most surprising parts of Atul Butte’s lab website is his open-access calendar. At the bottom of his profile page, Butte, Chief of the Division of Systems Medicine at Stanford University and a keynote speaker for the Bio-IT World Expo on April 10, lists his daily commitments, instructions for making an appointment, and his assistant’s phone number. The message is subtle, but clear: personal data cannot stay personal for long if Big Data will succeed in medicine.

    Mar 18, 2013

  • Cuts and Reorgs at AstraZeneca

    Bloomberg | AstraZeneca announced that it will cut 1,600 jobs in an overhaul of the company's research and development efforts. The cuts will hopefully save the company $1.4 billion.

    Mar 18, 2013

  • Complete Genomics Tender Offer Finished

    GEN | BGI has successfully completed its tender offer for all outstanding shares of Complete Genomics, the Chinese firm said today.

    Mar 15, 2013

  • Study Launched to Measure Benefits, Risks of Genetic Information

    UCSF | University of California San Francisco is launching a four-year, $2.4 million project to analyze how physicians and patients in the general population, as well as those given whole genome sequencing results in a clinical trial, evaluate the benefits and risks of genetic information.

    Mar 15, 2013

  • Illumina to Pay $96m in Patent Damages

    News Brief | A judge in Tacoma, Washington, has ordered Illumina to pay $96 million in damages to Syntrix Biosystems for infringing upon its bead array patent.

    Mar 15, 2013

  • Genomics on the Big Screen

    NGS Leaders |It’s been over 15 years since Gattaca took genetics to the big screen and pushed the boundaries of the public’s imagination. But where is genomic science reflected in Hollywood today? Author and director Brett Bonowicz hopes to answer that with ThePerfect46, a film that explores where genetics and social networks overlap.

    Mar 15, 2013

  • Questions Linger Over Hopkins Research Study and Co-Author’s Apparent Suicide

    Washington Post | Apparent suicide and potential scandal are two unsavory elements surrounding a disputed article published by a noted Johns Hopkins research group in Nature six months ago.

    Mar 14, 2013

  • Steven Salzberg on Microbial Genomes, Open Access, Flu Shots and Gene Patents

    Bio-IT World | Steven Salzberg, computer scientist at Johns Hopkins University, is the winner of the 2013 Benjamin Franklin Award, presented annually by the Bioinformatics Organization. He spoke to Kevin Davies about the highlights of his lab’s research over the past 15 years and his philosophy on open-source and open access.

    Mar 14, 2013

  • 23andMe Founder on the Genetic Revolution

    Guardian | 23andMe founder, Anne Wojcicki, talks genomics and why everyone should get on board.

    Mar 13, 2013

  • Sirtris Closes, Other ReOrg Plans at GSK

    Bio-IT World Roundup | Yesteday afternoon GSK announced that it was closing its Sirtris Pharmaceuticals offices in Cambridge, Mass. Close on the heels of the announcement, rumors swirled about other GSK reorganizations.

    Mar 13, 2013

  • Nabsys Closes $20 Million Financing Round

    Bio-IT World | Nabsys has closed a $20 million Series D financing to support the commercial launch of the company’s positional sequencing system. The company previewed its pre-beta instrument at AGBT last month, giving early users the chance to see the technology at work.

    Mar 13, 2013

  • Nobel Laureate Jack Szostak on RNA Evolution, Drug Discovery Chemistry

    Bio-IT World Video | Jack Szostak, Nobel laureate, will be keynoting CHI’s Drug Discovery Chemistry conference in San Diego in April. In this video sneak peak, he and Bio-IT World editor Kevin Davies discuss the role of academics in R&D, the exciting world of macrocyclic peptides, and his plan to one-up evolution.

    Mar 13, 2013