• New Framework For Developing Polygenic Risk Scores

    Bio-IT World | Last week a research team published a 22-item framework in Nature that identifies the minimal polygenic risk score-related information that scientists should include in their studies.

    Mar 25, 2021

  • Eric Dishman on Paul Allen, Andy Grove, and All of Us

    Bio-IT World | TRENDS FROM THE TRENCHES—It’s been a little over a year since Eric Dishman stepped down as CEO of the National Institutes of Health’s All of Us program and took on the role of Chief Innovation Officer. Now he talks about his early training under Paul Allen of Microsoft and Andy Grove of Intel still plays into his decisions.

    Mar 23, 2021

  • Jay Flatley Steps Down From Illumina Board

    Bio-IT World | Illumina has announced that Jay Flatley has decided to step down from the Board of Directors and John W. Thompson will be appointed as the Company’s new Chair of the Board. These changes will be effective as of the Company’s Annual Shareholder Meeting on May 26, 2021.

    Mar 18, 2021

  • It’s Time to Bet on the Underdog

    Bio-IT World | The unprecedented accomplishment that is Moderna’s innovative mRNA Covid-19 vaccine proves—among other things—that a shift has come to life sciences. It’s time to bet on the underdog.

    Mar 18, 2021

  • Stanford Researchers Find Culprit In Muscle Aging And How To Knock It Down

    Bio-IT World | For well over a decade now, scientists have been experimenting with “couch potato” drugs that could confer the benefits of exercise without having to flex a muscle. The latest candidate is a small molecule inhibitor impeding the degradation of prostaglandin E2 (PGE2), recently shown to act directly on mature muscle fibers to prevent deleterious molecular changes that arise with aging.

    Mar 17, 2021

  • Desktop PCs Supercharged to Rival Pricey Supercomputers

    Bio-IT World | Researchers at the University of Sussex have figured out a way to give desktop PCs the same horsepower as supercomputers, which could help democratize research involving large-scale brain simulations.

    Mar 15, 2021

  • mRNA Inconsistencies, Antibody Cocktails, Antibody Mapping: COVID-19 Updates

    Bio-IT World | Top COVID-19 news and research stories of the week: new variants will evade antibodies, inconsistencies in the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine batches, and a new COVID Antibody Epitope Mapping service.

    Mar 12, 2021

  • See Your Data: Collaborative Dictionary Authoring

    Bio-IT World | The foundation of a data commons is the data dictionary—the map or model populated with all of the data within an organization and the relationships between them. The hardest part of FAIR is the “I”—interoperability, says Bill Van Etten, senior scientific consultant at BioTeam. The data dictionary is what brings you from FAR to FAIR.

    Mar 9, 2021

  • Omics, Methylation, AI-Driven Discovery, Online Education: News and Products for February

    Bio-IT World | New products and company updates from around Bio-IT including Seven Bridges’ partnership with Pfizer, Illumina’s Russian approval, new methylation detection platform from Twist, and more.

    Mar 8, 2021

  • Nanotechnology-Based Vaccine Candidate, Blood Type A Raises Risk, Neanderthal-Derived Protein Offers Protection: COVID-19 Updates

    Bio-IT World I Variant that emerged in the UK could be more transmissible, SARS-CoV-2 may be particularly attracted to blood group A respiratory cells, a balanced T cell response is key to clearing virus without symptoms, and out-of-place large bone marrow cells responsible for brain fog. Plus: Heart muscle cells a target and could lead to cell death, interfere with heart muscle contraction and MIS-C patients have highly activated immune systems that are similar to adult COVID-19 patients.

    Mar 5, 2021

  • Spatial Surge: AGBT Updates On Single-Cell and Spatial Genomics, In Situ Analysis, More

    Bio-IT World | A host of sponsors and vendor companies attended the virtual AGBT General Meeting this week. Through sponsored talks and even more poster sessions, vendor companies shared their latest work and technology developments and made product announcements.

    Mar 4, 2021

  • CRISPR For COVID-19: Approaches To Speeding Therapeutic Discovery

    Bio-IT World | Neville Sanjana from the New York Genome Center and NYU turned his attention to COVID-19 early in the pandemic. For several years, his lab has focused on using CRISPR to identify which regions of the genome drive disease. Last year, he applied that expertise to using genome-wide CRISPR screens to look for COVID-19 risk factors.

    Mar 3, 2021

  • Building A Telomere-to-Telomere Human Pangenome Reference

    Bio-IT World | Our current version of the human reference genome does not adequately represent genetic diversity in the human population, Karen Miga told the virtual audience at this week’s AGBT General Meeting. The Human Pangenome Reference Consortium and the Telomere-to-Telomere Consortium are working to change that.

    Mar 2, 2021

  • Updates To All of Us, First Genomic Results Returned To Participants

    Bio-IT World | Josh Denny, CEO of NIH’s All of Us program, gave an update on the population sequencing program in the opening session of the virtual AGBT General Meeting this week.

    Mar 1, 2021

  • More Immunological Updates for SARS-CoV-2 Infection, Modeling New Drugs: COVID-19 Updates

    Bio-IT World | More insights into how the immune system reacts to SARS-CoV-2 infection, docking analysis predicts new COVID-19 drugs, and impacts of temperature and humidity. Plus: correlating COVID-19 symptoms and genetic profiles.

    Feb 26, 2021

  • Linus’ Law: What greater collaboration could do for scientific research

    Bio-IT World | Having spent the last decade with one foot in the door of the scientific research world, and the other foot in the door of the software world, I have viscerally experienced a fundamental flaw in how scientific research is done today: collaboration among scientists is severely lacking.

    Feb 25, 2021

  • African Centers of Excellence in Bioinformatics and Data-Intensive Sciences: Building The Technology Foundations For Global Growth

    Bio-IT World | Information technology has become a fundamental research tool for the international biomedical research community. That’s why NIAID has been building the African Centers of Excellence in Bioinformatics and Data-Intensive Science in Mali and Uganda. Equipping scientists in Africa with bioinformatics tools and technologies has come with some unique challenges, but also promises untold returns.

    Feb 23, 2021

  • Modeling New Drug Options, Better Look At Immune Response, Impact of Chromosome 12: COVID-19 Updates

    Bio-IT World | Specialized cells in a child’s immune system rapidly target SARS-CoV-2, nasal antiviral blocks transmission in ferrets, machine learning used for drug repurposing, insight into how the virus attacks mucus membrane cells, and a CDC update on anaphylaxis after vaccination. Plus: Fauci on known variants of the virus.

    Feb 19, 2021

  • Novel Approach Measures Tau Changes That Correlate With Dementia Stage

    Bio-IT World | The chemistry of tau protein in the brains of Alzheimer’s patients looks different at early and later stages of the disease, suggesting it could serve as a biomarker of disease progression. Although dementia researchers have historically focused almost entirely on abnormal accumulations of beta-amyloid, tau correlates better with cognitive decline and thus understanding its chemistry is key, says Judith Steen, Ph.D., associate professor of neurology at Harvard Medical School.

    Feb 18, 2021

  • Using Chromatography Data Systems to Drive Control, Compliance, Productivity

    Bio-IT World | In the modern-day analytical laboratory, chromatography and mass spectrometry (MS) are increasingly seen working side by side. These complementary techniques provide powerful insight into the quantity, size, and structure of a wide range of analytes. But despite the combined power of these systems, the practical instrumentation, data management and reporting are often anything but connected.

    Feb 17, 2021