• NIH Distributes $185M for Impact of Genomic Variation on Function (IGVF) Consortium

    Bio-IT World | At the beginning of September, the National Institutes of Health launched the Impact of Genomic Variation on Function (IGVF) consortium, a new initiative of NIH’s National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI). Now, NHGRI has named the first 25 awards across 30 U.S. research sites totaling approximately $185 million over five years.

    Sep 29, 2021

  • Trends in the Trenches 2021: Chris Dagdigian on Security Vaporware, Egnyte, and the Data Management Culture

    Bio-IT World | At this year’s Trends from the Trenches plenary presentation, Chris Dagdigian brought an overview of the trends and a warning of the technology pitfalls facing the Bio-IT community. He continued to beat his drum on a few cultural issues Bio-IT still needs to address, and he alerted the community to what’s new and notable.

    Sep 28, 2021

  • A Pandemic-Driven Digital Transformation: What Will Stick for Life Sciences

    Bio-IT World | Namita Limaye, Research VP at IDC, gave a broad overview of IDC’s survey findings over the past 18 months at this week’s Bio-IT World Conference and Expo held in Boston and online. She highlighted trends in the life sciences that included increased collaboration, speedier adoption of technologies, and a look at how executives are viewing—and planning—digital transformation.

    Sep 23, 2021

  • All of Us Update: Nearing Half a Million Participants, Whole Genomes Available This Winter

    Bio-IT World | Josh Denny, CEO of the All of Us research program, gave an update during the Bio-IT World Conference & Expo this week held in Boston and online.

    Sep 22, 2021

  • Digital Transformation: Execs Weigh in on the New Future for Pharma

    Bio-IT World | The Bio-IT World Conference and Expo kicked off last night both in Boston and online. The hybrid event welcomed attendees in person for the first time since April 2019, starting with an expansive plenary panel on digital transformation—a process that has been kicked into high gear for many companies during the pandemic.

    Sep 21, 2021

  • Enabling Scalability of Cell & Gene Medicines with Connected Lab Cold Storage

    Bio-IT World | Many cell and gene researchers are turning to technology to assist in scaling their operations. Connected and intelligent equipment is also becoming crucial for developers to meet research goals and maintain compliance, including connected ultra-low temperature (ULT) and cryogenic freezers capable of communicating temperature changes, product safety, and more.

    Sep 17, 2021

  • Building an Agile Approach to Antibody Discovery

    Bio-IT World | When the senior leaders at Eli Lilly and Company heard Helen Li’s plan for the pharma’s new Biologica platform for harvesting company institutional knowledge and building an analytic engine to suggest high quality antibody molecules for early discovery pipeline, they had one challenge: do it faster. And so, Li’s team launched an accelerated, agile development plan to build a platform they envisioned to house all experimental data, that feed into in silico modeling, a platform to scale up analytics to empower quality by design.

    Sep 16, 2021

  • Liverpool, Others Launch Forward-Looking Pandemic Research Initiatives

    Bio-IT World | Yesterday the University of Liverpool and other partners launched the Pandemic Institute, a medical, academic and civic partnership aiming to accelerate the global response to pandemics, unify global intelligence, and increase the reach and impact of pandemic research.

    Sep 14, 2021

  • GSK’s Digital Transformation Roadmap

    Bio-IT World | When Mike Montello joined the GSK team, the first steps of the pharma’s digital transformation had already taken place. Now with GSK’s spin-off of its consumer business looming, Montello is tasked with accelerating adoption of digital, data, and analytics to improve the overall research and development productivity—and increase probability of success of new medicines and vaccines.

    Sep 13, 2021

  • The Practical, Near-Term Future for Synthetic Biology

    Bio-IT World | Trends from the Trenches | Aoife Brennan left the practice of medicine to explore biotech. Now she leads Synlogic, developing scientific strategy for the company’s practical applications of synthetic biology. Brennan spoke about her career journey and the future of synthetic biology—a preview of her upcoming talk at the Bio-IT World Conference & Expo.

    Sep 9, 2021

  • A Closer Look at Type 1 Diabetes Causal Variants

    Bio-IT World | Researchers from the University of Virginia and the University of Oxford have been tracing the genes responsible for type 1 diabetes for years. The team just published the largest look yet: exploring the genomes of more than 61,000 individuals of diverse ancestry to better understand the genetic underpinnings of this complex disease.

    Sep 7, 2021

  • Follow the Money: Next Gen Oligonucleotides, ML Insights Platform

    Bio-IT World | HealthTech SPAC funding, wearable fitness program for metabolic health disorders, multiple academic grants for dementia research, using AI to watch cells over time, and more.

    Sep 3, 2021

  • New Results from BabySeq, Pharmacogenomic Updates, New Products

    Bio-IT World | Harvard-Israel and Sema4-Avera launch precision medicine partnerships, Rice announces new Genetic Design and Engineering Center, Foundation Medicine partners with Epic, and Amgen and USC provide cryo-TEMs. Plus new products from BioIVT, BD.

    Sep 1, 2021

  • Artificial Intelligence Calculates Anti-Aging Properties Of Compounds

    Bio-IT World | Artificial intelligence (AI) has been paired with one of the simplest of organisms—the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans—to enlighten the scientific community about the physical and chemical properties of drug compounds with anti-aging effects.

    Aug 31, 2021

  • Superbugs and the Flawed Antibiotic Development Model, Alert to a Growing Global Health Risk

    Bio-IT World | After over a year of the coronavirus pandemic, it’s hard to picture another global health crisis emerging, but data indicates bacterial infections could cause the next pandemic, as several known “superbugs” have adapted to resist all available antibiotics. The effects could be highly detrimental if today’s antibiotic development model doesn’t evolve and take priority. Antibiotics typically take an average of 10-15 years to develop and at high costs, roughly 1-2 billion dollars. This is due in part to the long, risky drug development process that has become the standard.

    Aug 27, 2021

  • Discovery on Target: A Deeper Look at 3D Cellular Models

    Bio-IT World | “This field is developing so rapidly. If it has been six months…, you're behind.” That’s how Christopher Austin describes the 3D cellular models research landscape. As the past director for NCATS, the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences, Chris knows the pace of this research area well. He recently left NCATS to serve as one of Flagship Pioneering’s CEO-Partners.

    Aug 26, 2021

  • Biochip Platform Could Enable Personalized Immunotherapy

    Bio-IT World | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and South Korean biotech Medical & Bio Decision Company Ltd. (MBD) are working on turning a biochip into a personalized immunotherapy platform for rapidly screening a wide range of treatment cocktails for individual cancer patients. The platform would be ideally suited for very small tumor biopsy samples.

    Aug 25, 2021

  • NIH Awards $53M for HIV Cure Research for Adults, Children

    Bio-IT World | The National Institutes of Health has awarded approximately $53 million in annual funding over the next five years to 10 research organizations in a continued effort to find a cure for HIV.

    Aug 23, 2021

  • Three Reasons Biopharma Companies Can’t Afford To Miss The Digital Revolution

    Bio-IT World | In the biopharmaceutical industry, there’s no shortage of data—the issue organizations more often face is how to capture data in ways that derive insight from it. Rather than stitching together a patchwork of data from disparate systems after the fact, more emphasis should be placed on capturing data in context, right at the point of execution.

    Aug 20, 2021

  • Ovarian Cancer Chip Model Reveals Drug Repurposing Opportunities

    Bio-IT World | A novel organ-on-a-chip model of ovarian cancer has been used to showcase the sinister activities of tumors, including use of circulating platelets to fuel their growth and undermine treatment with chemotherapeutic drugs. The model also demonstrated the potential of an anti-platelet drug, currently in clinical trials for a different condition: to fight back.

    Aug 17, 2021