• FDA Releases New IT Strategic Plan

    FDA Blog | Eric Perakslis, FDA’s Chief Information Officer and Chief Scientist for Informatics, reveals the FDA’s new FDA Information Management Strategic Plan this morning in a blog. There is still much to be done to modernize information technology at FDA, Perakslis says.

    Nov 9, 2012

  • Interpretation and Assembly: New and Needed in Genomics

    Nature Biotechnology | The biggest challenges in genomics now lie in interpretation and assembly. There's been a lot of progress, but there's also more to go. Ten experts discuss the advances and the needs to manage the millions of genomes soon to be sequenced.

    Nov 9, 2012

  • Cray Acquires Appro for Cluster Computing, Increases I/O for New Line

    Bio-IT World Roundup | Cray has signed an agreement to acquire Appro International for $25 million to create a cluster business. The company also discussed a new interconnect, Aries, that will feature a new routing topology that together promise to dramatically improve internal bandwidth.

    Nov 9, 2012

  • American College of Medical Genetics and Genomics Condemns Gene Patent Monopolies

    Bio-IT World | Yesterday, the American College of Medical Genetics and Genomics (ACMG) released an official position statement condemning gene patent monopolies that have allowed some to develop proprietary databases of the clinical meaning of the variants in particular genes.   

    Nov 8, 2012

  • Sequencing Reveals Gene Regulation in E. Coli

    Bio-IT World | Eric Schadt and colleagues at Mount Sinai School of Medicine and Harvard Medical School have used single-molecule real-time (SMRT) DNA sequencing to determine mechanisms of gene regulation in the E. coli bacteria involved in the deadly outbreak in Germany in May-June 2011. Published online today in Nature Biotechnology, the findings provide novel insights on the role of epigenetic DNA base modifications in driving molecular processes of the E. coli strain. 

    Nov 8, 2012

  • Brigham and Women’s Team Wins Clinical Genome CLARITY Challenge

    Bio-IT World | SAN FRANCISCO—A team of computational biologists and clinical geneticists from the Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston has won the inaugural CLARITY Challenge to identify and present the putative mutations underlying the rare disorders of three children or infants who have received care at Boston Children’s Hospital and had their full genomes sequenced.

    Nov 7, 2012

  • Secure Genomics in the Cloud

    SmartPlanet | Scott Megill, CIO for the Coriell Institute for Medical Research, and Dan Pelino, General Manager of IBM’s Global Healthcare & Life Sciences Industry group, offer up the case for putting genomic data in the cloud.

    Nov 6, 2012

  • How to Design a Better Double Helix

    Bio-IT World | The Double Helix by James D. Watson is not merely a magnificent scientific detective story but one of the classics of 20th century literature. Inspired by the discovery of the lost correspondence of Francis Crick a few years ago, two veteran Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory faculty decided to produce an enhanced edition of the book. On the eve of publication, Bio-IT World invited the editors of the new book, Alex Gann and Jan Witkowski, to discuss the background to the project and preview some of the treasures within.

    Nov 6, 2012

  • High School Student Wins Science Prize

    Huffington Post | 17-year-old Angela Zhang created a nanoparticle that can detect cancer cells, eradicate the cancer cells and then monitor the treatment response.

    Nov 6, 2012

  • Bayer Purchases Cloud App to Analyze Genomic Data

    News Brief | Bayer HealthCare Pharmaceuticals has purchased a new cloud computing application to analyze and visualize multi-dimensional genomics data: OncoGenomics Explorer, a software solution developed by MediSapiens.

    Nov 6, 2012

  • Bio-IT World Launches 2013 Best Practices Program

    Bio-IT World | The 2013 Bio-IT World Best Practices competition has released its Call for Entries. Since 2003, Bio-IT World's Best Practices competition has been recognizing outstanding examples of technology and strategic innovation initiatives across the biomedical and drug discovery enterprise. The deadline for entry is January 11, 2013, and the early bird deadline is December 14, 2012.  

    Nov 5, 2012

  • Expensive Gene Therapy Approved in Europe

    Reuters | Europe has approved an expensive gene therapy. Glybera treats the genetic disorder lipoprotein lipase deficiency (LPLD) and will cost around 1.2 million euros ($1.6 million) per patient.

    Nov 5, 2012

  • Oxford Nanopore and Illumina in Arbitration Regarding Sequencing Partnership

    Bio-IT World | In an analyst research note issued last week, Charles Weston, director of equity research at Numis Securities Ltd in London, spotlighted a legal proceeding between Oxford Nanopore Technologies and Illumina, an early investor in the company. 

    Nov 5, 2012

  • Watson Learns Medicine

    Fast Company | IBM's Watson computer is learning medicine. Through a series of apps and guidance by real oncologists, the computer is practicing diagnoses and storing new disease facts in its database.

    Nov 5, 2012

  • In Conversation: Tufts Geneticist Diana Bianchi on Noninvasive Prenatal Testing

    Bio-IT World | One year after the commercial debut of the first noninvasive prenatal test for aneuploidy by Sequenom, the technology is seeing rapid uptake and development by a handful of diagnostics start-ups. Diana Bianchi, an expert in noninvasive prenatal testing at Tufts Medical Center an to Verinata Health, discusses the exciting advances in this field.

    Nov 5, 2012

  • Amazon Web Services Outage Postmortem

    Computerworld | Last week's AWS outage drew myriad responses and placed blame, but it was an inevitable occurance. The outage started small, but snowballed into a 12-hour event.

    Nov 2, 2012

  • King’s Proclamation for Citizen Scientists

    Bio-IT World | First Base | One of the most electrifying scientific presentations I’ve ever heard—complete with a rare standing ovation—came nearly two decades ago at the American Society of Human Genetics (ASHG) annual convention. The woman who gave those remarks—Mary-Claire King—is now the president of ASHG and will likely inspire thousands in attendance once again when she deliver’s her presidential address next week in San Francisco.

    Oct 31, 2012

  • 1000 Genomes Project Publishes Inventory of Human Genetic Variation

    The Guardian | Scientists with the 1,000 Genomes Project have published the full genetic sequences of more than 1,000 people from 14 countries, creating the most complete inventory of the millions of variations between people's DNA sequences ever assembled. The resource will shed light on the genetic roots of complex diseases, as well as informing studies of human evolution.

    Nov 1, 2012

  • Roche Accused of Sitting on Trial Data for Flu Treatment

    The Independent | Roche is being accused of withholding key trial data about a vital flu drug, Tamiflu, on which governments around the world have spent billions of dollars. The editor of the British Medical Journal published an open letter to Sir John Bell, Regius Professor of Medicine at Oxford University and a Roche board member, asking him to persuade the company to release the data "for independent scrutiny".

    Nov 1, 2012

  • Nanopore Sequencing Inches Closer to Commercial Debut

    Physics Today | With Oxford Nanopore exhibiting at next week's American Society of Human Genetics conference, there is growing excitement about the prospects for nanopore sequencing technology, particularly given recent progress in controlling DNA’s motion in the pore. The signs are that this technology is indeed inching towards a commercial debut in the near future.

    Nov 1, 2012