tranSMART, IDBS, JAX and more: News from August 2016
August 30, 2016 | News, products, and partnerships from around the bio-IT community including news from tranSMART, JAX, Internet2, IDBS, Synthego, and more.
The tranSMART Foundation has added four new life sciences and technology organizations as Silver Members. BioSci Consulting, Boehringer Ingelheim, Imperial College London, and ITTM each made a minimum investment of $5,000 to $20,000 to help fund the Foundation's operations. They also have the opportunity to submit a representative to a pool of candidates to be elected the Foundation's board, and can nominate one individual to one of the Foundation's 3C's (Code, Content and Community) committees. Press release.
ACD/Labs, a leading cheminformatics company, today announced that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Interactive Chemical Safety for Sustainability (iCSS) Chemistry Dashboard, a publicly accessible web application that supports scientists' chemical research, is searchable through ACD/ChemSketch. The integration enables scientists to draw chemicals on their desktop and access high-quality chemical structures, physicochemical properties, and toxicity information via the EPA Chemistry Dashboard. The Chemistry Dashboard, launched earlier this year, is part of a suite of dashboards developed by the EPA to help environmental chemists, computational toxicologists, and other researchers use new types of data to evaluate the potential health effects of chemicals. Within the Chemistry Dashboard, scientists can access chemical structures, experimental and predicted physiochemical properties and toxicity data, and additional links to relevant websites and applications. The dashboard also maps curated physiochemical property data associated with chemical substances to their corresponding chemical structures. Users may also filter results by chemical name, mass or molecular formula, or by chemical identifiers. ChemSketch gives scientists the ability to draw chemical structures including organics, organometallics, polymers, and Markush structures. ChemSketch also provides calculation of molecular properties (e.g., molecular weight, density, molar refractivity, etc.), 2D and 3D structure cleaning and viewing, functionality for naming structures (fewer than 50 atoms and 3 rings), and prediction of logP. Press release.
The Jackson Laboratory’s George Weinstock, JAX director of microbial genomics, has announced two sponsored research programs this month. With Shoreline Biome JAX is partnering to develop new ways to study the microbiome and develop new diagnostic approaches for disease-causing pathogens. Weinstock will work with Shoreline to analyze the entire metagenome (the collective genome of the microbiome) in order to identify individual organisms including pathogenic Clostridium difficile, a bacterium that causes diarrhea and more serious conditions such as colitis. (Press release) bioMérieux USA also launched a sponsored research program with the Weinstock lab to seek better methods to identify individuals at risk for infection, the pathogens that cause an individual’s infection, and which antibiotics offer the most effective treatment for the patient. (Press release)
Princeton University has joined the New York Genome Center (NYGC) as its newest Associate Member. This collaboration with Princeton’s Lewis-Sigler Institute for Integrative Genomics, will help strengthen NYGC’s focus on clinically actionable genomics and science. As an Associate Member, Princeton and the Institute’s faculty will have priority access to NYGC’s Integrated Genomic Solutions, including next-generation sequencing for exomes, whole genomes and RNA; bioinformatics analysis of sequencing results, using a high-performance computing environment; and data management and storage. In addition, the relationship offers access to NYGC’s CLEP-certified laboratory services and to new technologies through NYGC’s Innovation Center. Press release.
Internet2 announced that cloud solutions from Acquia are now available to member institutions through its NET+ portfolio. Acquia provides a digital experience platform that empowers higher education institutions of all types and sizes to deliver powerful digital experiences that serve relevant content and engage key audiences including current and prospective students, faculty, staff, and alumni. The NET+ Acquia offering is now available to Internet2 higher education members. This includes Acquia’s product suite and services, offered at a discount and under the contract terms negotiated by the service validation participants. Press release.
Nimbus Data has unveiled ExaFlash, a revolutionary new all-flash platform for cloud, big data, virtualization and massive digital content. The building blocks of the ExaFlash Platform are ExaFlash Arrays, a new family of all-flash system that sets new records for energy efficiency, capacity, connectivity options, and rack space density. ExaFlash Arrays draw 95% less power per terabyte than competing designs by eliminating irrelevant components and minimizing CPU use through intelligent hardware-offload engines. ExaFlash Arrays also incorporate ultra-dense flash drives to deliver up to 50x the capacity in the same rack space as competing alternatives. ExaFlash Arrays are available in sizes ranging from 50 TB to 4.5 PB and feature the latest 32 Gb Fibre Channel, 100 Gigabit Ethernet, and EDR InfiniBand connectivity. ExaFlash Arrays feature dual active-active controllers, redundant power and cooling, and hot-swappable components for always-on availability and easy serviceability. Press release.
Synthego launched this month. Its flagship product line, CRISPRevolution, features synthetic guide RNA products designed to accelerate CRISPR/Cas9 and Cpf1 genome engineering research. CRISPRevolution offers economical access to fully synthetic RNA for high fidelity editing and increased precision in genome editing. Synthego minimizes the variables and risks in biological research by automating workflows, precisely controlling quality at each step, scaling for massive experiments, and reducing cost structures. A direct result of Synthego’s automated platform is CRISPRevolution, a portfolio of synthetic guide RNA products for CRISPR genome editing.
Bio-Rad Laboratories has launched an assay website that allows droplet digital PCR (ddPCR) users to locate existing assays or design new ones for mutation detection and copy number determination. The website enables users to instantly design assays for any target of interest or order preexisting mutation detection and copy number determination assays. The portfolio of preexisting assays includes nearly 1,000 wet-lab validated assays guaranteed to work when properly used and more than 2,500 predesigned assays that employ the same design criteria to deliver reliable and robust ddPCR results. Assays that have not been predesigned and/or validated can be designed in real time through the website and will include protocols to help users optimize their results for a high rate of success. Detailed information is provided for each assay, including the MIQE context sequence, amplicon length, compatible restriction enzymes, and recommended copy number variation reference assays. Press release.
IDBS and Cancer Research Technology (CRT), the commercialization arm of Cancer Research UK, have collaborated to streamline plate correction in high throughput screening (HTS) through an algorithm, developed by IDBS in response to CRT requirements and soon to be offered to all customers. The algorithm enables ActivityBase users to correct data within acceptable margins in seconds. It improves data quality and reduces the number of results that would otherwise need to be corrected manually or reworked, resulting in significant time and cost savings. The ActivityBase template enables the automated correction of fifty plates in two seconds, with researchers able to view and store both before and after data. The functionality is compatible with data containing control wells as well as for multiple plate layouts. Press release.
Zephyr Health launched two new analytic capabilities for Zephyr Illuminate. These new capabilities, Referral Analytics and Segment Analytics, were previously available only for charter customers. Referral Analytics identifies referral patterns to help predict and segment potential referring healthcare providers, specialists or organizations. With Referral Analytics, life sciences companies can quickly compare historical referral trends and volume, and prioritize existing or new customers based upon referral potential. Segment Analytics provides a summary view of multiple customer groups to better analyze and target key customers and markets. Using Zephyr Illuminate’s powerful, proprietary scoring capabilities, Segment Analytics aggregates data relevant to both medical and commercial teams on key attributes such as treatment, promotional engagement, marketing influence and clinical research. Press release.