• Plans for the California Institute of Biomedical Research

    Xconomy | Last week Merck announced a $90m investment in the California Institute of Biomedical Research--Calibr--to be headed by Peter Schultz. Xconomy spoke with Schultz about the hiring process, plans for collaborations, and the Institute's relationship with Merck.

    Mar 18, 2012

  • After the Gravy Days: Opportunities for Biotech Growth

    Forbes, Wall Street Journal | In an article on biotech funding on Friday, the Wall Street Journal did not mince words: "The gravy days are over," the authors said, comparing fundraising to the housing market for sellers: tough. Forbes contributor David Shaywitz looks at where the opportunities are for disruptive growth in this environment. 

    Mar 18, 2012

  • Computer Scientists' Solution to a Biologist’s Problem

    Bio-IT World | HAMILTON, NEW ZEALAND—In 2004, a New Zealand biotech approached a group of computer scientists with a biology problem. Genesis Research was sequencing the poplar tree genome, and they had a problem they estimated it would take their in house cluster about three months to solve, recalls Graham Gaylard, Real Time Genomics’ founder. A team of computer scientists solved the problem in a few weeks. 

    Mar 16, 2012

  • A Personal Proteome Project

    Personal Proteomics | A proteomics bioinformatician launches his own Personal Proteome Project with proteome sequencing by Bioproximity. He is releasing three proteomics datasets on the Proteome Cluster on the Amazon Cloud.

    Mar 16, 2012

  • P4 Medicine Institute Adds Partner

    Xconomy | Leroy Hood's P4 Medicine Institute has announced an alliance with PeaceHealth, a nonprofit Catholic health system with locations in Washington, Oregon, and Alaska. 

    Mar 16, 2012

  • GSK, Infosys Engage Consumers Digitally

    InPharm | GlaxoSmithKline has chosen Infosys and Fabric Worldwide to improve how GSK engages with consumers and health care professionals in digital media. 

    Mar 16, 2012

  • Merck Pledges $90m to California Institute for Biomedical Research

    U-T San Diego | Merck has pledged $90 million to the California Institute for Biomedical Research, a private, nonprofit center to be led by Peter Schultz and located in La Jolla.

    Mar 16, 2012

  • HHMI Announces New Competition For 30 Investigators

    HHMI News | The Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) will appoint up to 30 new biomedical researchers through a national open competition, the institute has announced, an investment worth some $200 million over the next five years.

    Mar 15, 2012

  • Aspera Speeds Data in Amazon Cloud

    March 15, 2012 | SAN DIEGO—The directory of Aspera’s approximately 1,400 clients reads like the Fortune 500 list. These organizations use Aspera’s proprietary software to speed up the transfer of large volumes of data, which is significantly impacted by latency and packet loss. “We’ve solved the fundamental problem of moving big data over public and private networks,” Aspera’s Daniel Kumi, director of sales and business development, told an audience at CHI’s XGen Congress last week. 

    Mar 15, 2012

  • Dr. Watson: IBM's Clinical Genomics Platform

    Smart Planet | IBM has launched an analytics platform using some of the natural language processing of Watson for use in a health care setting. 

    Mar 15, 2012

  • Clinical Genomics for Leukemia Patients

    Reuters | Two studies published in the New England Journal of Medicine explore genetic profiling's role in the treatment of AML, acute mylogenous leukemia. 

    Mar 15, 2012

  • VCF and the Genome Analysis Toolbox

    Bio-IT World | Inside the Box | We tend to take the extraordinary for granted. Roughly ten years ago we saw the first human genome sequence at a cost of roughly $3 billion. Now a person could have their genome sequenced in a few days for a few thousand dollars, turn around, and in a few more days compute how their sequence differs from any public sequence. This analysis might cost you just a few more dollars to rent the server. Let’s consider how one version of the bioinformatic part of this exercise might work.

    Mar 14, 2012

  • Broad's Heng Li Wins 2012 Benjamin Franklin Award

    Bio-IT World | Heng Li, a research scientist at the Broad Institute, is the winner of the 2012 Benjamin Franklin Award for Open Access in the Life Sciences. Li made essential contributions to the next generation sequencing (NGS) field with tools like SAMtools, BWA, MAQ, TreeSoft and TreeFam.  

    Mar 14, 2012

  • Data Rich, but Insight Poor

    Huffington Post | After yet another story about genomics’ impending explosion, one editor wonders why a “data rich” environment is lauded as the answer.

    Mar 14, 2012

  • Drug Company Helps Shift Treatment Focus

    Xconomy | Seattle Genetics’ first product, Adcetris, was approved by FDA in August. The drug targets a receptor in Hodgkin’s disease and anaplastic large cell lymphoma. The drug works, but the target market is small. So Seattle Genetics is launching a study to find other cancers with the same receptor.

    Mar 14, 2012

  • Wisconsin Stem Cell Group Wins Cycle Computing $10,000 Challenge

    Bio-IT World | Victor Ruotti, a computational biologist at the Morgridge Institute for Research, University of Wisconsin-Madison, has won the 2012 CycleCloud BigScience Challenge. Ruotti will be awarded $10,000 of computation time on the Amazon cloud—the equivalent of eight hours on a 30,000-core cluster.

    Mar 12, 2012

  • Phylo Proves Gamers' Advantage

    Nature | Gamers are proving themselves adept and untangling genomic problems once again. Data from the online game Phylo has helped tackle a problem in comparative genomics and was published in PLoS One.

    Mar 13, 2012

  • Reflections on Ten Years of Bio-IT

    Bio-IT World | To mark the 10th anniversary of Bio-IT World’s launch in March 2002, we have invited dozens of prominent scientists and bio-IT professionals, many of whom have featured in our pages and our conferences over the years, to reflect on the most transformative changes they have witnessed over the past decade. 

    Mar 12, 2012

  • Bayer Drug Approvals and Growth in Asia Pacific

    Bio-IT World | SINGAPORE--Bayer’s focus in Asia Pacific has continued to grow in the last year, with the company experiencing 9.4% growth across Asia in 2011. Singapore, Vietnam, and Pakistan each enjoyed more than 26% growth in 2011, while markets in Malaysia and Indonesia grew by 14% and 13% respectively.

    Mar 9, 2012

  • Progress and Problems in Clinical Genomics Sequencing at XGen Congress

    Bio-IT World | SAN DIEGO—Two leaders in the clinical application of whole genome sequencing offered further signs of progress in a pair of keynote talks at the 2012 XGen Congress. Rick Wilson, director of The Genome Institute (TGI) at Washington University, St Louis, and Elizabeth Worthey, bioinformatician at the Medical College of Wisconsin (MCW), shared new findings on the sequencing of cancer and pediatric cases. Although encouraging, Worthey in particular expressed some strong cautionary notes that are hampering current efforts in ending diagnostic odysseys. 

    Mar 7, 2012