Personalis, Dovetail Genomics, DataDirect Networks, And More: News From April 2017

April 27, 2017

April 27, 2017 | April featured exciting new, products, and partnerships from around the bio-IT community from innovating companies, organizations, and universities, including Personalis, Dovetail Genomics, DataDirect Networks, and more.

Personalis announced the order of ten Illumina NovaSeq 6000 systems to continue to scale its operations in 2017. The first two instruments have now been delivered. Personalis is partnering with leading biopharmaceutical companies to accelerate cancer immunotherapy development with advanced next-generation sequencing (NGS) services for clinical trials and translational research. In particular, Personalis is a pioneer in the field of personalized cancer vaccines and is actively involved in numerous current and planned clinical trials which leverage the company’s ACE ImmunoID Next Generation Sequencing Platform. Personalis ACE ImmunoID provides a comprehensive assessment of a tumor and its immune microenvironment, which includes the identification and characterization of neoantigens, Class I and Class II antigen presenting machinery, tumor escape mechanisms and tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs). This detailed characterization of individual tumors supports the synthesis of customized therapeutics for each patient. Press release

Dovetail Genomics announced that it has entered into a distribution agreement with DAON BioSciences to bring Dovetail's genome assembly services to the Korean market. The agreement gives DAON BioSciences exclusive rights to market and distribute Dovetail's genome assembly services to researchers in South Korea. Press release

CN Bio Innovations announced that it has licensed from Bristol-Myers Squibb a Hepatitis B drug discovery programme comprising several series of small molecule antiviral compounds. The exclusive agreement enables CN Bio to undertake discovery, development and commercialization of the antiviral compounds to create a combination treatment for chronic Hepatitis B infection and a monotherapy treatment for Hepatitis D infection. The small molecule compounds, identified by a Bristol-Myers Squibb screening programme prior to exiting virology discovery, act to inhibit the production of Hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg). This antigen causes “immune exhaustion”, overwhelming the body’s ability to combat infection. CN Bio will use its liver-on-a-chip model of Hepatitis B infection “Quantum-B” as a bridge to the clinic. The platform employs human liver cells in a physiologically analogous environment allowing viral replication over several weeks. Candidate drugs – or combinations – can be tested for both safety and efficacy, rapidly generating highly relevant data for the compounds’ ultimate clinical usage. CN Bio also announced that Imperial College professor and consultant in hepatology at St. Mary’s Hospital, London Professor Mark Thursz, will chair the company’s Scientific and Clinical Advisory Board. Press release

DataDirect Networks (DDN) announced new feature enhancements to its WOS object storage platform that include increased data protection and multi-site connectivity options. With its newest capabilities, DDN WOS provides the lowest data protection overhead available in the market. It also delivers control for local-only rebuilds for higher uptime and lower performance impact of hardware failures, along with multi-site collaboration, distribution, and disaster recovery that is faster and more efficient than public cloud solutions. DDN’s newly released WOS data protection offering, Extended ObjectAssure, expands customer choice of protection methods, resulting in the industry’s widest variety of data-protection options. WOS’s extremely low overhead expenses make the cost of object storage competitive with tape storage alternatives. It also enables faster rebuild times that lower the risk of data loss during a rebuild and eliminate or limit performance impacts from drive failures. Press release

Bionano announced the immediate availability of its entirely new suite of tools for genome assembly, structural variation (SV) detection, and visualization of the genome’s true structure. The Bionano Access 1.0 and Bionano Solve 3.0 software tools are released as a free download. Bionano Access centralizes all software tools required to generate, edit, analyze, and visualize Bionano maps. For Irys users, it replaces the IrysView software. It enables visualization of Bionano results in a web browser, providing instantaneous interaction with Bionano maps used for the scaffolding and SV applications. Bionano Access also comes with a powerful variant annotation pipeline that can filter out common variants based on a database of controls, analyze trios or two samples to identify inherited and de novo SVs, and visualize and export in a dbVar-compliant VCF file for downstream analysis. Hybrid scaffolding is enhanced with map editing, improved two-enzyme scaffolding, and NCBI-compliant data exporting. When connected with the Saphyr System it allows users to set-up experiments, start runs, monitor data quality metrics in real-time, and automatically start de novo assemblies and SV discovery analysis when enough data is collected. The Bionano Solve 3.0 assembly pipeline within Bionano Access allows users to run SV analysis or hybrid scaffolding. Bionano Solve 3.0 automatically calls SVs with unprecedented sensitivity. Insertions and deletions larger than 1 kilobasepair (kbp) are detected with more than 90% sensitivity and translocations with 98% sensitivity. Significant improvements to translocation calling and masking of common variants significantly reduces the false positive translocation calls. The pipeline also significantly improves the hybrid scaffolding application by integrating two genome maps created separately with different nicking enzymes. Compared to the prior version, the new two-enzyme hybrid scaffolding incorporates up to 50% more NGS contigs in the assembly, improves contiguity significantly and allows for improved resolving of conflicts and correction of chimeric sequence contigs. This application continues to support any NGS data of suitable quality. Press release

Berlin-based labfolder and the Berlin Institute of Health (BIH) announced the signing of a framework agreement which will allow BIH member entities and its employees to use labfolder's electronic lab notebook at the Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin (University Hospital) and the Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine (MDC) in Berlin-Buch. This marks a significant breakthrough in digitalizing scientific work processes at the Charité and the MDC. labfolder's lab data management software enables scientists to capture, link, and manage data from a variety of sources, such as computers, tablets, lab devices, and medical measurement and diagnostic devices, while adhering to laboratory guidelines and industry standards. labfolder expedites research and innovation, facilitates data analysis and helps scientists collaborate across departments and continents. labfolder can be installed on both the institutions' local servers and a central server. Its data platform is extremely flexible and can be adapted by BIH scientists to suit their needs. Press release

Seeding Labs introduced their Instrumental Access 2017 awardees at the Positively Instrumental celebration of global science. Each awardee will receive donated lab equipment through Instrumental Access, Seeding Labs’ flagship program that makes high-quality lab equipment, and supplies available to university departments and research institutes in developing countries. Equipment provides a foundation for other critical resources that allow scientists to generate new knowledge, leverage sustainable funding, and better prepare university students for the scientific workforce. The awardees are:

  • Universidad Autónoma de Yucatán’s Department of Chemical Engineering,
  • Universidad Pontificía Bolivariana’s Department of Nanotechnology Engineering,
  • University of the West Indies’ Natural Products Institute,
  • Redeemer’s University’s Department of Biological Sciences,
  • Université de Dschang’s Department of Biochemistry,
  • University of Lagos’ Department of Cell Biology & Genetics,
  • Dar es Salaam University College of Education’s Department of Chemistry,
  • Moi University’s Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry and Department of Medical Biochemistry,
  • University of KwaZulu-Natal’s Department of Chemical Engineering,
  • University of Zimbabwe’s Department of Biochemistry,
  • The Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda’s Department of Microbiology and Biotech Centre,
  • National Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Armenia’s Institute of Molecular Biology,
  • Nong Lam University’s Department of Biotechnology,
  • Vasyl Stefanyk Precarpathian National University’s Department of Biochemistry and Biotechnology