• CEO's Transparency at PacBio

    Fortune | Pacific Bioscience CEO Hugh Martin believes in full disclosure. When diagnosed with cancer, he told the entire staff of his company the full details.

    Oct 7, 2010

  • Re-Defining Storage for the Next Generation

    Bio-IT World | ‘There are no vendors that have their finger on the pulse of the problem. I can tell you in no uncertain terms that that is the case.” David Dooling, assistant director of informatics at The Genome Center at Washington University is not mincing words. But he’s not totally throwing storage vendors under the bus either. “The issue is that it’s not a single problem."

    Oct 7, 2010

  • Next Generation Genetics and Biopharma

    Bio-IT World | Even for a jaundiced veteran of the biopharmaceutical industry, it’s hard not to gush over the astounding output of today’s DNA sequencing machines. Twenty-five years ago, I was lucky to read 1,000 nucleotides off an X-ray film during my thesis work. A next-generation sequencing (NGS) instrument can deliver nearly a billion times that number of bases. The computer sector, Moore’s Law notwithstanding, can’t match that gargantuan gain. But what is the potential value of this new technology to biopharma?

    Oct 6, 2010

  • South Florida Ponders Benefits of Personalized Medicine Institute

    The Tampa Tribune | To the medical school dean at the University of South Florida, the future of health care lies in a big field about 165 miles south of Tampa, along the road from Naples to Immokalee. But not everyone is convinced.

    Oct 2, 2010

  • Patents Ending, Eli Lilly Chases New Drugs

    New York Times | Eli Lilly is preparing to ride the storm as it faces arguably the worst patent cliff in big pharma -- the loss of patent protection in the next seven years on drugs that have accounted for nearly three quarters of its sales.

    Oct 2, 2010

  • The $1,000,000 Genome Interpretation

    Bio-IT World | As the cost of sequencing continues to freefall, the challenge of solving the data analysis and storage problems becomes more pressing. But those issues are nothing compared to the challenge facing the clinical community who are seeking to mine the genome for clinically actionable information—what one respected clinical geneticist calls “the $1 million interpretation.”

    Oct 1, 2010

  • The Solexa Story

    Bio-IT World | While the Panton Arms isn’t yet enshrined in scientific folklore like The Eagle—the pub a mile away where Jim Watson and Francis Crick exclaimed, “We’ve discovered the secret of life” to the bemused lunchtime crowd in 1953—that could change. Four chemists’ ideas for a new approach to DNA sequencing began to ferment there. “I remember going home feeling pretty excited, as I often did after a discussion at the Panton Arms,” Shankar Balasubramanian said. “I told the landlord that I’ll make him very famous one day. If I do, free beers for life! But I probably need to help him understand the importance first.”

    Sep 24, 2010

  • The Lost Letters of Francis Crick

    Nature | Alexander Gann and Jan Witkowski, of the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, unveil newly found letters belonging to Francis Crick, who co-discovered the double helix in 1953 with Jim Watson.

    Sep 29, 2010

  • Sequencing the Human Secret

    Bio-IT World | Hong Kong is blanketed by a thick haze in early September and the sky matches the concrete buildings in the Tai Po Industrial Estate in Hong Kong’s New Territories. The estate is older than the Science and Technology Park, but here BGI is free to own the building. I don’t realize we’ve arrived at BGI until my guide points out the small sign, hanging low by the front door. A blue tarp on the top corner of the building suggests that signage more prominent and appropriate—given that this will soon be the largest genome sequencing center in the world—is on the way.

    Sep 24, 2010

  • The Road to the $1,000 Genome

    Bio-IT World | This special issue of Bio•IT World contains a series of stories and essays that provide some useful perspectives on the march to the $1,000 genome, which some regard as a medical imperative and others a grand illusion.

    Sep 24, 2010

  • GATC Biotech to be PacBio's First European Service Provider

    Bio-IT World | GATC Biotech announced today that it will be purchasing the PacBio RS platform for planned installation of early 2011. The new PacBio RS will be the fifth sequencing technology for GATC Biotech. 

    Sep 22, 2010

  • China Takes on the Proteome

    Nature News | Researchers in China announced that they have received grants of roughly $30 million per year--soon to double--for the Chinese Human Proteome Project.

    Sep 22, 2010

  • Lee Hartwell, Nobel Laureate, Tackles Personalized Medicine

    Xconomy | Lee Hartwell, the 70-year-old Nobel laureate and former president of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, wants to change the way the world thinks about personalized medicine and help boost scientific education among young children.

    Sep 21, 2010

  • The Broad’s Approach to Genome Sequencing (part II)

    Bio-IT World Exclusive | In part II of this exclusive interview, Toby Bloom, the Broad Institute's head of informatics for the production sequencing group, talks about coping with the next-generation sequencing “data deluge' and the potential of the Cloud.

    Sep 16, 2010

  • The Broad’s Approach to Genome Sequencing (part I)

    Bio-IT World | In Part I of a two-part exclusive interview, Rob Nicol and Chad Nusbaum share some of the keys to the Broad Institute’s sequencing success with Bio-IT World chief editor Kevin Davies. (In Part II tomorrow, we talk to Toby Bloom, the Broad’s director of informatics.) 

    Sep 15, 2010

  • FACTS 2 Makes Most Clinical Trials Eligible for Design Simulation

    Bio-IT World |  The first upgrade to the FACTS simulation tool, co-developed by Tessella and Berry Consultants, increases the proportion of clinical studies that can benefit from simulation of the design up to about 85%.

     

    Sep 15, 2010

  • BGI Bags a Big Pharma Alliance with Merck

    Bio-IT World | At a landmark press conference in Shenzhen, China, today, BGI and Merck signed a long-term "working relationship” that could mark a turning point in the fortunes of BGI and big pharma's embrace of next-generation sequencing technology.

     

    Sep 14, 2010

  • NHGRI Announces $1,000 Genome Grants

    Bio-IT World | The National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) announced more than $18 million in grants yesterday to drive development of third generation DNA sequencing technologies to bring the cost of sequencing a human genome to $1,000.

    Sep 13, 2010

  • New Algorithms Trace Neuron Shapes

    HHMI | New computational tools can trace the complex branching shapes of neurons up to 10 times faster than previous methods. The algorithms were designed by competitors in the DIADEM Challenge.

    Sep 3, 2010

  • Pfizer to Expand Orphan Drug Portfolio with Acquisition

    Boston Business Journal | Pfizer plans to acquire FoldRx, a Massachusettes-based biotech whose lead drug candidate has orphan drug designation in both the US and EU. The acquisition follows Pfizer's creation of an Orphan and Genetic Diseases Research Unit earlier this year. 

    Sep 3, 2010