• China Welcomes Oxford Nanopore Technology

    Bio-IT World Brief | Oxford Nanopore sequencing technology is now available in China. The long-read, real-time, portable MinION sequencer is now being used by researchers across China, who are working on myriad DNA sequencing applications including: pathogen research, human genetics, plant genetics, animal genetics, and metagenomics.

    Oct 17, 2017

  • Illumina Ventures Closes $230 Million Fund

    Bio-IT World Brief | Illumina Ventures announced today that it has raised $230 million for its first fund. The balance of the funds have been raised from a mix of corporate, institutional, sovereign, and individual investors.

    Oct 16, 2017

  • Data Security And Cloud Providers: Assessing The Risks

    Bio-IT World Contributed Commentary | Research organizations are aware of the potential for cloud technologies to increase efficiency, cut costs, and reduce time to market. In the wake of the recent Equifax breach, the latest in a seemingly endless string of security incidents, organizations want to ensure they are protecting their assets and minimizing potential liabilities.

    Oct 13, 2017

  • FDA Vote Sets Stage For Gene Therapy’s Future

    MIT Technology Review | A first-of-its-kind medical treatment that replaces a mutated gene with a correct copy could soon be available in the U.S.

    Oct 12, 2017

  • The Future Of DNA Sequencing

    Nature News & Comment | Eric D. Green, Edward M. Rubin, and Maynard V. Olson speculate on the next forty years of DNA sequencing, from policing to data storage.

    Oct 11, 2017

  • What The EU General Data Protection Regulation Means For You

    Bio-IT World | The European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation goes into effect May 25, 2018. The regulation is significantly more expansive than the privacy directive it replaces and carries hefty financial penalties for non-compliance. But the biggest cause for concern may be its impact for non-European companies, who have no idea that the regulations apply to them.

    Oct 10, 2017

  • 4D Movies Reveal Two Mechanisms For DNA Loops

    Bio-IT World | A paper published yesterday in Cell sheds more light on two mechanisms of DNA folding within the nucleus, and how the folding impacts genome function.

    Oct 6, 2017

  • Illumina Introduces Nextera DNA Flex

    Bio-IT World Brief | Illumina announced the availability of an innovative whole genome sequencing library prep product, Nextera DNA Flex, which eliminates the need for sample preparation for whole blood and saliva, and removes tedious steps in the library prep workflow, such as mechanical fragmentation of DNA, quantification, and normalization.

    Oct 6, 2017

  • Nature Adds Alert To Heavily Debated Paper About Gene Editing

    Retraction Watch | Nature has added an “editor’s note” to a high-profile paper detailing how a team of researchers used CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing to correct a disease-causing mutation in viable human embryos, alerting readers to the fact that the article has been subject to criticism.

    Oct 5, 2017

  • Cloud-based Informatics Can Increase Agility, Reduce TCO, Improve Collaboration

    Bio-IT World Contributed Commentary | The move to collaborative research is one of the most fundamental changes occurring in life sciences discovery today. As biopharmaceutical companies engage more and more with each other, increased operational agility, reduced total cost of ownership, and improved global collaboration have become important keys to success.

    Oct 5, 2017

  • Synthego And Thermo Fisher To Manufacture, Distribute Synthetic Guide RNA Products For CRISPR

    Bio-IT World Brief | Synthego announces a new alignment with Thermo Fisher Scientific to manufacture and distribute world-class quality synthetic guide RNA products. Synthego’s synthetic guide RNA portfolio and synthetic guide RNA manufacturing capabilities will be utilized to produce synthetic guide RNAs under Thermo Fisher’s Invitrogen TrueGuide brand that will be marketed and sold across Thermo Fisher channels worldwide.

    Oct 5, 2017

  • Why Science Turned On Craig Venter For Championing Genetic Privacy

    Inverse | In early September, notorious geneticist and businessman J. Craig Venter published a controversial study claiming that faces and other personal details could be back-engineered from supposedly "private" genetic data. Before most people even got a chance to read his latest paper, the criticisms began rolling.

    Oct 4, 2017

  • HumanCode Gives Couples A DNA-based Glimpse Into Their Future Children

    Bio-IT World Brief | HumanCode announced the launch of BABYGlimpse, the first DNA-powered app for couples to discover and explore the genetic-related traits their children may inherit.

    Oct 4, 2017

  • Tools Of The 21st Century: HPC, Analytical Ultracentrifugation, And A New Detector

    Texas Advanced Computing Center | Researches made a discovery about how the West Nile virus uses cell proteins to facilitate its replication. The research was enabled by HPC, analytical ultracentrifugation, and a new detector.

    Oct 3, 2017

  • Bio-IT World Welcomes 2018 Best Practices Entries

    Bio-IT World | Bio-IT World is accepting entries to the 2018 Bio-IT World Best Practices competition. For the past fifteen years, the Bio-IT World Best Practices Awards have highlighted outstanding examples of innovations and partnerships serving as powerful forces for change in the life sciences.

    Oct 3, 2017

  • Chinese Scientists Fix Genetic Disorder In Cloned Human Embryos

    Nature News & Comment | A method for precisely editing genes in human embryos hints at a cure for a blood disease.

    Oct 2, 2017

  • Understand What I Mean, Not What I Say

    Bio-IT World Contributed Commentary | In the field of biobanking, where it is common for biobanks to evolve for different purposes, in disparate locations, and with isolated informatics systems, it’s no surprise that communication within and across biobanks, even within one institution, is challenging and fraught with miscommunications.

    Oct 2, 2017

  • Security Takes On Malicious DNA (Files)

    Security Now | Securing biomedical research can mean protecting systems from malicious code in the samples under investigation, University of Washington security researchers say.

    Sep 29, 2017

  • Standardized Interpretation Pipelines Will Be Essential For Genomic Medicine

    Bio-IT World Contributed Commentary | Next-generation sequencing continues to offer new hope for scientists and clinicians focused on everything from rare disease to cancer. Still, the clinical application of genomics could use some crucial improvements— perhaps none more urgent than standardized automated tools for genome interpretation.

    Sep 29, 2017

  • The Zika Virus Grew Deadlier With A Small Mutation Study Suggests

    The New York Times | A single variation in its DNA may have helped equip the virus to attack fetal cells, contributing to a surge of birth defects in Latin America.

    Sep 28, 2017