• John Boyce Previews the Consumer Genetics Conference

    CGC | John Boyce, CEO GnuBio and the co-founder of The Consumer Genetics Conference, discusses the history behind this successful show and previews the highlights of the 2012 program, being held October 3-5 in Boston. 

    Aug 27, 2012

  • The Unsung Heroes Behind Those Big Genomics Breakthroughs

    The Guardian | A core facility is a slightly unusual niche for a career scientist – not an independent researcher, not a lecturer, but more like running a small-to-medium sized biotechnology company that happens to be not-for-profit. 

    Aug 27, 2012

  • From Google to Flatiron Health and the Fight Against Cancer

    Business Insider | After selling their start-up, Invite Media, to Google for $81 million, Nat Turner and Zach Weinberg have founded a new company, Flatiron Health, aimed at devising ways to help mine clinical data and cure cancer. 

    Aug 24, 2012

  • Video: Nancy Kelley on the New York Genome Center

    Bio-IT World | Video: Nancy Kelley, founding executive director of the New York Genome Center, speaks on camera with Bio-IT World editor Kevin Davies about the rapid progress and future plans for the new genome center currently under construction in the SoHo district of Manhattan.

    Aug 23, 2012

  • Klebsiella Pneumoniae Superbug Killed Six at NIH Clinical Center

    Huffington Post | Scientists are reporting how next-generation sequencing identified a deadly antibiotic-resistant 'superbug' that spread alarmingly through the medical center at the NIH, ultimately claiming six lives before the source of infection was confirmed and the microbe eradicated.

    Aug 22, 2012

  • deCODE Study Finds Older Dads Pass On More Genetic Mutations

    Wall Street Journal | According to the latest publication from Iceland's deCODE Genetics, a sequencing study reveals that older fathers pass on more new genetic mutations to their children than younger fathers, thus increasing their children's risk of autism, schizophrenia and other diseases.

    Aug 22, 2012

  • QED: Hopkins Algorithm Ranks the Beauty of Drug Chemistry

    Bio-IT World | Companies such as Optibrium are praising the “Quantitative Estimate of Drug-Likeness” (QED) algorithm to rank chemical compounds based on their oral bioavailability, developed by the University of Dundee's Andrew Hopkins and colleagues.

    Aug 21, 2012

  • Amazon Web Services Launches Amazon Glacier Archival Storage

    Bio-IT World | How does 1 cent/Gigabyte sound? That's the potential pricepoint of Amazon's new Amazon Glacier archival storage solution designed for data archiving and backup that is already gaining the attention of companies such as Complete Genomics. 

    Aug 21, 2012

  • The Biophysics of 3-D Genome Modeling

    Wired | Harvard University biophysicist Erez Lieberman Aiden is helping to open new windows into the study of the 3-D topological structure of chromosomes.

    Aug 20, 2012

  • Halcyon Molecular Quietly Shuts Down Sequencing Operation

    GigaOM | Halcyon Molecular, one of the many companies that was working on next-generation DNA sequencing technologies, has quietly ceased operations due to a shortage of funds, GigaOM reports.

    Aug 20, 2012

  • Reproducibility Initiative to Increase the Value of Biomedical Research

    Bio-IT World | Science Exchange, the open-access publisher Public Library of Science (PLOS), and open data repository figshare, have announced the launch of the Reproductibility Initiative -- a new program to help scientists, institutions and funding agencies validate their critical research findings.

    Aug 17, 2012

  • Are Drug Companies Faking an Innovation Crisis? Uh, No.

    Discover Magazine | Derek Lowe, a veteran pharmaceutical chemist and blogger, provides a withering rebuttal of a recent commentary in the British Medical Journal that argued that the “widely touted innovation crisis in pharmaceuticals is a myth.”

    Aug 17, 2012

  • Thirty Groups Enter CLARITY Clinical Genome Interpretation Challenge

    Bio-IT World | Organizers of the CLARITY Challenge at Boston Children’s Hospital are thrilled that 30 academic and commercial organizations have entered the genome interpretation contest, although the entrant list does not include the major US/UK genome centers and consumer genomics firms.  

    Aug 16, 2012

  • By George: Researchers Turn Book Into DNA Code

    Wall Street Journal | Harvard University researchers led by George Church have encoded the text of Church's forthcoming book Regenesis into DNA and then accurately read back the text, they report in Science magazine. 

    Aug 16, 2012

  • Myriad Wins Gene Patent Ruling From U.S. Appeals Court

    Reuters | By a vote of 2-to-1, a federal appeals court has upheld its decision to uphold Myriad Genetics' patents on the BRCA1 and BRCA2 breast and ovarian cancer genes, after the U.S. Supreme Court told it to take another look at the hotly contested case. 

    Aug 16, 2012

  • The Human Microbiome: Me, Myself, Us

    The Economist | Looking at human beings not just as individuals but as ecosystems that contain trillions of collaborating and competing microbial species could change the practice of medicine. 

    Aug 16, 2012

  • Is the Better Benchtop DNA Sequencer Losing the Marketing War?

    Forbes.com | According to an analyst at Macquarie Equities Research, in the battle of benchtop sequencers the Ion Torrent PGM is outselling the Illumina MiSeq by several hundred units, even though researchers tend to favor the MiSeq's technical performance. One reason might be that the PGM is $50,000 cheaper than the MiSeq. 

     

    Aug 15, 2012

  • How the FDA Stymies Progress -- and How to Get Around It

    The Skeptical Outsider GUEST COMMENTARY| Are cells taken from your body and then returned to it “drugs”? They are, according to a recent court ruling that granted the FDA an injunction against the developers of an adult stem cell therapy. And that doesn't sit well with Bill Frezza.

    Aug 13, 2012

  • Found in Translation: Where Do Cures Come From?

    The Guardian | In this opinion piece, Jenny Rohn asks, What's the best way of doing research? Throwing money at bright minds or trying to solve a particular problem? Or is there a third way? 

    Aug 13, 2012

  • Researchers Germinate Novel Approach to Big Bio Data

    Datanami | C. Titus Brown heads MSU’s lab for Genomics, Evolution, and Development, which recently undertook the task of researching large collections of metagenomics data. The project was so complex that Brown’s team had to fashion a solution to solve a specific problem.

    Aug 10, 2012