• PerkinElmer Collaborates With Helix To Drive Innovation In Exome-Based Personal Genomics

    Bio-IT World Brief | PerkinElmer has announced a collaboration with Helix to develop and commercialize exome sequencing-based tests that will empower consumers to make proactive health management decisions. Tests developed as part of this collaboration will be available to customers of Helix’s expanding online marketplace for DNA-powered products.

    Apr 10, 2018

  • Dam Data: Health Systems, Machines, And Learning

    Bio-IT World Contributed Commentary | Increased use of electronic health records and other digital data has brought what amounts to a deluge of potential evidence, one that never ends. A “learning health system” can create the equivalent of a hydroelectric dam – a place to catch all of those raindrops in one place and release them in a coordinated, powerful way.

    Apr 9, 2018

  • Why Did Novartis Spend $9 Billion On Gene Therapy? CEO Says: A Journey To Focus On Data And Digital

    Forbes | Novartis announced it would buy gene therapy pioneer AveXis for $8.7 billion, giving the Swiss drug giant several treatments for rare diseases that work by inserting new DNA into patients' cells.

    Apr 9, 2018

  • This Company Can Encode Your Favorite Song In DNA—For $100,000

    MIT Technology Review | It's not cheap. But Twist Bioscience thinks storing data in genes could be the next big thing.

    Apr 6, 2018

  • Five Use Cases For AI and Machine Learning In Commercial Pharma

    Bio-IT World Contributed Commentary | Over the last decade, early business uses of Artificial Intelligence (AI), or machine learning, in life sciences have proven successful in drug discovery – predicting molecule-target bonding, identifying new biomarkers, and uncovering new drug indications. Now machine learning is gaining broader traction into other areas, including commercial operations, and transforming the way the industry collects, synthesizes, and uses data.

    Apr 4, 2018

  • Kite Pharma Veterans Launching New Firm To Develop Off-The-Shelf CAR-T

    STAT | Two former Kite Pharma executives unveiled Allogene Therapeutics, a new company trying to develop a suite of CAR-T therapy assets designed so that they do not need to be personalized for each cancer patient.

    Apr 3, 2018

  • Platypus: Deep Data Dives For Clinical Data Reviewer

    Bio-IT World | If you are creating a tool designed to give a sixth sense, of course you name it after a semiaquatic, egg-laying mammal endemic to eastern Australia. Not unlike the animal, Takeda’s Platypus is made up of various parts, specifically designed to meet the medical reviewer’s needs.

    Apr 2, 2018

  • Deceptive Cloud Efficiency: Do You Really Pay As You Use?

    Forbes | Cloud computing is often described as a "pay as you go" service, but that might not really be the case.

    Mar 30, 2018

  • Jennifer Doudna Joins Synthego Advisory Board

    Bio-IT World News Brief | Jennifer Doudna has joined Synthego’s advisory board. She will advise Synthego on a variety of product, partnership, and business strategy initiatives to help amplify the company's fast-growing impact in the genome engineering space. The advisory role builds on Doudna’s January 2017 individual investment in the company.

    Mar 29, 2018

  • AI Designs Organic Syntheses

    Nature | Software that devises effective schemes for synthetic chemistry has depended on the input of rules from researchers. A system is now reported in which an artificial-intelligence program learns the rules for itself.

    Mar 29, 2018

  • The Government Wants To Free Health Data. Will That Unleash Innovation?

    STAT | The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services wants to put patients in charge of their information - and it wants to do so explicitly to help app and device makers gain access to high-quality data.

    Mar 29, 2018

  • PAREXEL, Vanderbilt University, Boehringer Ingelheim, And More: News From March 2018

    Bio-IT World | March featured exciting new, products, and partnerships from around the bio-IT community from innovating companies, organizations, and universities, including PAREXEL, Vanderbilt University, Boehringer Ingelheim, and more.

    Mar 28, 2018

  • CRISPR Restored: Scientists Reverse Finding That Gene Editing Technology Had Flaws

    Forbes | Last summer a paper appeared suggesting that CRISPR gene editing could cause hundreds of off-target mutations. Turns out that was wrong, and the authors have just published a preprint admitting it.

    Mar 27, 2018

  • Sequencing Patients' Genomes Might Not Break The Health Care Bank

    STAT | The first rigorous study of its kind finds that sequencing people's genomes might not lead to extensive and expensive follow-up care, researchers reported.

    Mar 22, 2018

  • CRISPR Strategy & Standards: How Synthego’s Free Software Lays The Groundwork For CRISPR Futures

    Bio-IT World | Synthego has had a remarkable year of development, including their Inference of CRISPR Edits, an open source algorithm for validating CRISPR edits that offers rapid, reproducible analysis of Sanger sequencing data.

    Mar 21, 2018

  • Global Gene Corp, Regeneron Announce Largest Genomics Program For Indian Population

    The Times of India | Global Gene Corp, a well-known genomics data platform, has teamed up with US-based Regeneron Genetics Center (RGC) to sequence the exomes of people from the Indian subcontinent and examine the links between human genetic variations and specific diseases.

    Mar 20, 2018

  • The Struggle To Build A Massive “Biobank” Of Patient Data

    The New York Times | At a cost of $1.4 billion, the NIH’s All of Us program may help scientists discover new links between diseases, genes, and lifestyle. But the project faces formidable obstacles.

    Mar 19, 2018

  • The Next-generation Screening Lab What, Why, How?

    Bio-IT World Contributed Commentary | As part of the ELRIG Drug Discovery conference in Liverpool (UK) in October 2017, a group of 60 delegates came together to discuss the lab of the future in a workshop organised by the Standards in Laboratory Automation (SiLA) consortium. The workshop focused on four themes: users, suppliers, interoperability, and news of German SmartLab initiatives. To engage with considerable audience experience, speakers presented their views and opened the floor to discussion. We took notes.

    Mar 16, 2018

  • 2018 Benjamin Franklin Award Winner Announced

    Bio-IT World | Bioinformatics.org has named Desmond Higgins, Professor of Bioinformatics at the University College Dublin (UCD) Conway Institute, as the winner of the 2018 Benjamin Franklin Award for Open Access in the Life Sciences.

    Mar 15, 2018

  • Harvard-MIT’s Broad Institute Powers Genomic Research in the Cloud

    Wall Street Journal | Genomic researchers at more than 100 public and private institutions comb 70 petabytes of data aiming to advance the understanding and treatment of human disease and lay the groundwork for new therapies.

    Mar 14, 2018