• 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

  • Eric Schadt: Why Biology Needs a Steve Jobs

    Nature Biotechnology | Eric Schadt, director of Mount Sinai's new Institute for Genomics and Multiscale Biology, discusses his vision to spend $100 million launching Mount Sinai to the forefront of the genomics revolution—and why he's enlisting Wall Street quants, user interface gurus and Facebook's former data whiz to do it.

    Aug 9, 2012

  • Nic Volker, Living on the Edge of Science

    JS Online | Two years after exome sequencing prompted a life-saving cord blood transplant, 7-year-old Wisconsinite Nic Volker is enjoying school, real food, good health and life in general. 

    Aug 9, 2012

  • Clinical Trial is Favorable for Microarray Prenatal Gene Test

    New York Times | The use of microarrays for prenatal testing to detect more genetic problems in a fetus than standard kayrotype testing could be headed toward wider use after encouraging results from an NIH-sponsored clinical trial of more than 4,000 pregnancies.  

    Aug 9, 2012

  • Physicians May Not Be Social, But They are Interactive

    Forbes.com | The desire to understand physician behavior, identify Key Opinion Leaders, and reach those influencers in a measured way is of extreme importance to pharmaceutical executives, writes Jim Golden in his latest blog.  

    Aug 9, 2012

  • CardioDx Wins Medicare OK of Molecular Test for Heart Disease

    Xconomy | After three years marketing a new genetic test that can tell when a patient’s chest pain is a sign of serious heart disease, CardioDX has taken a big step forward by persuading Palmetto GBA, the national contractor for Medicare, to reimburse the company for its Corus CAD test.

    Aug 8, 2012

  • Congratulations on Reaching the $1000 Genome

    PolITigenomics | For all intents and purposes, argues David Dooling, we have already achieved the $1,000 human genome -- compared to the $1 billion or spent on the first human genome, the difference between $1,000 and $5,000 is just a rounding error. "So, congratulations, we did it!"

    Aug 6, 2012

  • Quinten’s Savoir Faire Approach to Data Mining

    Bio-IT World | Quinten, a rapidly expanding French CRO, brings an innovative data-mining approach to much of the drug development pipeline – from early stage target identification to clinical trials and patient stratification. Here, Kevin Davies interviews Quinten CEO Alexandre Templier. 

    Aug 3, 2012

  • Drug Discovery Looks for Its Next Fix

    HPC Wire | Supercomputing shows great promise to improve the process of drug discovery, not only to find better, safer drugs, but also to weed out those compounds that would eventually fail during clinical trials. 

    Aug 3, 2012

  • Five Steps for Handling your Big Data Hoard

    Enterprise CIO Forum | Decades ago, valued data was handled in a very manual and individual manner. But the explosion of data sources has made most people hoarders, without a plan to leverage the value. 

    Aug 3, 2012