• New Study Reveals 1 Million Human Genome Sequence Errors Across Two NGS Platforms

    Bio-IT World | “What does it mean to have a ‘healthy’ genome?” That was the question that University of Utah geneticist Mark Yandell and colleagues set out to address in an important recent paper in the journal Genetics in Medicine. Among the key conclusions: there are 1.1 million discrepancies when the identical human genome sample is sequenced using two popular next-generation sequencing (NGS) platforms.

    Apr 1, 2011

  • Carole Goble: Democratizing Informatics for the ‘Long Tail’ Scientist

    March 31, 2011 | In 1979, Carole Goble went to the University of Manchester to study computer science, and never looked back. She has helped create and/or develop a host of life science tools including Taverna, myExperiment, and BioCatalogue, all in the name of democratizing informatics. Goble recently spoke to Bio•IT World editor-in-chief Kevin Davies about her mission to democratize informatics for life sciences. 

    Mar 31, 2011

  • Bioinformatics for Traditional Chinese Medicine

    Wall Street Journal | University of Sydney computer scientist researchers are using new technology to investigate old treatments. The researchers are using algorithms to determine the efficacy of Chinese herbal treatments using data supplied by the China Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences in Beijing.

    Mar 29, 2011

  • Cray Supercomputer Planned for 20 Petaflops

    Tech Eye | Cray will construct a new supercomputer, dubbed Titan, that will be able to achieve 20 petaflops, far above the 2.5 petaflop record currently held by the Chinese Tianhe-1A.

    Mar 27, 2011

  • Bayer Report Asia Pacific Growth

    Bio-IT World | SINGAPORE—Earlier this week, Bayer HealthCare Pharmaceuticals reported 5.8% sales growth for Asia Pacific, compared to global growth of 0.9%. Company representatives listed a strong pipeline, double-digit growth in several emerging Asian markets, and a secure patent situation as foundations for the company’s position.   

     

    Mar 25, 2011

  • Ending Diagnostic Odysseys the Wisconsin Way

    NGS Leaders | For the past several years, the Medical College of Wisconsin's Howie Jacob has been telling everyone that genomic sequencing will reach the clinic by about 2014. It turns out he was a little late. As Kevin Davies explains on NGS Leaders, Jacob and colleagues are blazing a trail for applying whole-genome sequencing for seriously ill patients with undiagnosed disorders. 

    Mar 24, 2011

  • Funding the Future of Biotech

    Xconomy | In a two part Xconomy article, Stewart Lyman details how pharma and biotech, along with the federal government, fund most biomedical research in the US, but there are other sources of capital that can drive drug discovery and development.

    Mar 24, 2011

  • EMC Announces Data Hero Awards

    Bio-IT World | EMC Corporation has announced the Data Hero Awards 2011, a far-reaching program to honor those individuals and organizations exploring innovative uses of Big Data technologies and techniques. These often-unsung Data Heroes are at the forefront of pioneering solutions that have a profound impact on the way individuals, organizations, entire industries and societies live and work.

    Mar 23, 2011

  • Quest Buys Celera for $657 million

    Reuters | Quest Diagnostics said on Friday it will pay $8/share for Celera, a $657 million bid. The gene sequencing company founded by Craig Venter, has a promising genetic testing pipeline in cardiovascular disease, cancer, and neurological disorders.

    Mar 20, 2011

  • Putting Medical Records Data Through its Paces

    Bio-IT World | The Partnership to Advance Clinical electronic Research or PACeR was created to “convene the users and the collectors of the data to understand how we can safely reuse electronic medical record data to facilitate clinical research,” explains David Krusch, chief medical information officer at the University of Rochester Medical Center and chair of the PACeR leadership committee.

    Mar 11, 2011

  • Pore Science: Oxford and the 15-Minute Genome?

    The Economist | The Economist looks at Oxford Nanorpore's nanopore sequencing. “So the current state of the art spends between five and ten days just preparing the DNA,” said Gordon Sanghera, CEO at Oxford Nanopore.

    Mar 11, 2011

  • UC Davis’ Jonathan Eisen Wins 2011 Benjamin Franklin Award

    Bio-IT World | Jonathan Eisen, an evolutionary geneticist and professor in the Genome Center at University of California, Davis, has been named the winner of the Benjamin Franklin Award for 2011 by the Bioinformatics Organization.  

    Mar 15, 2011

  • FDA Panel Recommends Physican Input for Genetic Tests

    Medpage Today | At the FDA's Molecular and Clinical Genetics Advisory Panel last week, the panel again recommended that certain at-home genetic tests not be used without the involvement of a physician or genetic specialist.

    Mar 11, 2011

  • IBM Announces Cloud Computing Center in Singapore

    Bio-IT World | SINGAPORE—Earlier this week, IBM announced a $38m investment n a new IBM Asia Pacifica Cloud Computing Data Centre in Singapore scheduled to launch in April. The new facility will extend IBM's globally-integrated cloud delivery network with centers in Germany, Canada and the United States; and 13 global cloud labs, of which seven are based in Asia Pacific: China, India, Korea, Japan, Hong Kong, Vietnam and Singapore. 

    Mar 10, 2011

  • deCODE Identifies Heart Rhythm Disorder SNP

    Bio-IT World | Earlier this week, scientists at deCODE genetics and academic colleagues from Iceland, The Netherlands, Denmark, the US and Illumina, report the discovery of a single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) associated with high risk of sick sinus syndrome (SSS). The study was published on March 6 in the online edition of Nature Genetics.

    Mar 10, 2011

  • On the Edge of the Patent Cliff

    New York Times | Pfizer's patent on Lipitor expires in November, representing a $10 billion/year revenue stream for the drug maker.

    Mar 7, 2011

  • EMD Serono Opens New Research Hub in Boston

    Bio-IT World | Following in the footsteps of Novartis, Merck and other big pharma companies that have decided to headquarter their research operations in the Boston area, EMD Serono recently opened a new research facility in the Boston suburb of Billerica.

    Mar 3, 2011

  • NCBI Closes Sequence Read Archive, Pepidome Respository

    Bio-IT World | NCBI has announced that it will discontinue its Sequence Read Archive (SRA) and Trace Archive repositories for high-throughput sequence data and the Pepidome Repository, citing budgetary constraints. 

    Mar 1, 2011

  • Nic Volker May Be Leading Edge of New Wave of Genetic Medicine

    Milwaukee-Wisconsin Journal Sentinel | The case of Nic Volker, a young undiagnosed patient in Wisconsin who was treated after exome sequencing revealed a specific genetic lesion, may be the leading edge of a wave moving across medicine, as doctors at the Medical College and Children's Hospital have half-a-dozen new cases moving through an evaulation process.

    Feb 28, 2011

  • Better Business, Better Compliance Through Defensible Data Disposal

    Bio-IT World Expert Commentary | Pharmaceutical companies are drowning in data, but few organizations know what to do about it. That’s about to change. A new information governance strategy that supports “defensible data disposal” can help companies reduce the amount of data they retain. By doing so, they can utilize research data more efficiently, improve compliance processes, reduce legal and business risk, and save money.

    Feb 23, 2011