• The New Anti-Science Assault on US Schools

    The Guardian | Not withstanding the famous 2005 Pennsylvania court ruling on intelligent design, anti-evolution campaigners in the United States are now combining with climate change deniers to continue to undermine public education.

    Feb 13, 2012

  • BGI Researchers Report More Evidence of RNA Editing

    Bio-IT World | In a study published online in Nature Biotechnology, BGI researchers have reported evidence of extensive RNA editing in human cells. The paper is a follow up study to last May's Science paper that initially reported sequence differences between mRNA and DNA. 

    Feb 12, 2012

  • The $11 Billion Molecule?

    Forbes | Forbes has posted a new estimate of how much it costs pharmaceutical companies to bring a new drug to market. The result: between $4 and $11 billion per drug, far more than any previous estimate.

    Feb 12, 2012

  • Illumina's Numbers Without Roche

    Motley Fool | Illumina has rejected Roche's most recent offer, and earlier in the week released fourth-quarter numbers that were a bit less than last year's, but still expected. 

    Feb 12, 2012

  • Personalized Medicine Partnership Launches in Florida

    Orlando Sentinel | Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute, Florida Hospital and Moffitt Cancer Center have teamed to create Personalized Medicine Partnership of Florida.

    Feb 9, 2012

  • Supporting the $1000 Genome

    Forbes | With the $1,000 genomic sequencing barrier looming, the question remains whether we'll be able to make sense of the data to come pouring off sequencers like Life Technologies' new Ion Proton Sequencer.

    Feb 9, 2012

  • San Diego Gets Bulk of California NIH Grants

    San Diego Source | A new PricewaterhouseCoopers report shows that three of the top 10 California recipients of National Institutes of Health grants were in the San Diego area.

    Feb 9, 2012

  • Scientific Collaboration in New York

    Xconomy | The New York Genome Center will open this month, and the New York eHealth Collaborative held its first conference last year. It's been a season of collaboration for scientific organizations in the New York area.

    Feb 9, 2012

  • Laying the Foundation for Next-Gen Cancer Diagnostics

    Bio-IT World | This summer, Foundation Medicine will launch what could be described as the next generation of cancer diagnostics. The Cambridge, Mass.-based company, founded by a premier group of cancer researchers and funded by Third Rock Ventures, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Google Ventures, will launch a comprehensive next-gen sequencing (NGS) profile screening some about 200 genes known to be clinically relevant and actionable in cancer using routine, formalin-fixed paraffin embedded patient cancer specimens. 

    Feb 7, 2012

  • Flatley Flatly Rejects Roche Unsolicited Bid for Illumina

    BusinessWire | Illumina CEO Jay Flatley has informed Roche that its unsolicited tender offer of $44.50 per share is "grossly inadequate in multiple respects, dramatically undervalues Illumina and is contrary to the best interests of Illumina's stockholders."

    Feb 8, 2012

  • Warp Drive Bio Charts Course for Natural Product Drugs

    Bio-IT World | While many major pharma companies have been cutting back their research into natural products, Warp Drive Bio, a new start-up out of Third Rock Ventures in Boston, is dedicated to mining the genome of micro-organisms for potent natural product compounds. And in a striking $125-million deal, Warp Drive has teamed with Sanofi to provide ample funding to get operations off the ground and potentially into orbit. 

    Feb 7, 2012

  • Picture Perfect: Imaging in Drug Discovery and Translational Medicine

    Bio-IT World | Imaging in drug discovery has been rising to the forefront of conversations more and more recently. Managing editor Allison Proffitt spoke with Ken Kilgore, Director of Immunology Pharmacology at Janssen Research & Development (formerly Centocor Research & Development), a Johnson & Johnson company, about how—and why—imaging’s role is changing in drug discovery.

    Feb 7, 2012

  • Roche Calls Illumina Offer 'Full and Fair'

    CNBC | Roche's $44.50/share offering for Illumina is "a full and fair price," Roche CEO Severin Schwan told CNBC. He said the pharma company is "committed to making [the] transaction happen."  

    Feb 5, 2012

  • Norway to Sequence Genomes for National Health Care

    Nature | Norway plans to incorporate genome sequencing into its national health care system. The Norwegian Cancer Genomics Consortium will sequence the tumor genomes of 1,000 patients as part of its three-year pilot phase.

    Feb 5, 2012

  • AGBT Agenda Includes Oxford Nanopore Sighting

    Bio-IT World | The highly anticipated, newly released agenda for the sold-out AGBT conference in two weeks reveals several technology nuggets, including kinetic incorporation data from PacBio, the latest results in benchtop sequencing from Illumina's MiSeq and Ion Torrent's PGM, and data from at least two new NGS systems, including the long-awaited debut of Oxford Nanopore. 

    Feb 1, 2012

  • Vertex’ Newly Approved Cystic Fibrosis Drug Illustrates Hopes and Challenges of Treating Rare Diseases

    Bio-IT World | In a triumph for cystic fibrosis research, Vertex Pharmaceuticals has received FDA approval for Kalydeco (ivacaftor, VX-770), a drug that treats a subset of CF patients, raising a debate on the future of personalized medicine and the treatment of rare diseases.

    Feb 1, 2012

  • No Spin Zone: Nimbus Launches E Class Flash Storage

    Bio-IT World | Could this be the beginning of the end of spinning media? Nimbus Data Solutions has launched its highest performance flash memory system, the E class, touting major improvements in scalability, power consumption, cooling efficiency and density. “It’s a chance to reinvent storage for performance and efficiency,” CEO Thomas Isakovich told Bio-IT World.  

     

    Jan 31, 2012

  • Phoenix Supercomputer Gateway to Personalized Medicine

    Arizona Republic | A massive building near Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport -- the CSS Institute -- is now home to a supercomputer that one day is expected to store clinical-research reports, medical records and the decoded genetic makeup of millions of patients and their cancers.

    Jan 30, 2012

  • What is (Quantitative) Systems Pharmacology?

    Bio-IT World | Last October, Harvard Medical School announced a broad initiative in systems pharmacology while the NIH released a like-minded white paper on quantitative and systems pharmacology in the post-genomic era. That's a fair amount of attention from two very big guns on a topic that may ring both familiar and unfamiliar.

    Jan 18, 2012

  • Branding Academic Publishers 'Enemies of Science' is Offensive

    The Guardian | Noting that scientific publishers "are not philanthropists, charities or funding agencies," a member of the industry pens a rebuttal to recent staunch criticism that academic publishers are "anti-science" and "anti-publication" in light of the proposed US Research Works Act.

    Jan 27, 2012