• Leaders In Biobanking Congress: The Story So Far

    Bio-IT World | This week Bio-IT World will be in attendance at the 9th international Leaders in Biobanking Congress, which takes place October 25-27 in Nashville, Tennessee. We at Bio-IT World would like to take a moment to review stories we’ve covered in the past few months in preparation for this event.

    Oct 23, 2017

  • Children’s Hospital Of Philadelphia, Edico Set World Record For Secondary Analysis Speed

    Bio-IT World | Using Edico Genome’s DRAGEN pipeline on 1,000 Amazon EC2 F1 instances, the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and Edico Genome set a new scientific world standard last week in rapidly processing whole human genomes.

    Oct 23, 2017

  • News And Notes From ASHG 2017

    Bio-IT World Brief | The American Society of Human Genetics annual meeting took place this week in Orlando, Florida. Here are some of the product news and company announcements released over the course of the week. Highlights include the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and Edico Genome’s world record-setting achievement, LifeOmic’s agreement with Genomenon, HudsonAlpha, and more.

    Oct 20, 2017

  • China Biotech Promise Struggles To Keep Foreign Innovators

    Bloomberg | As money rushes into China's fledgling biotechnology sector, Eli Lilly and other foreign drugmakers are scaling back.

    Oct 20, 2017

  • Observations On The Post-Mortem Tissue Donation Process For Biospecimen Research

    Bio-IT World Podcast | Sarah Gray of the American Association of Tissue Banks is featured on this podcast from Cambridge Healthtech Institute in preparation for the Leaders in Biobanking Congress. Topics include expectations about the process of donating post-mortem tissue for biospecimen research, possible process improvements to better serve patients, and more.

    Oct 19, 2017

  • The Latest AI Can Work Things Out Without Being Taught

    The Economist | IN 2016 Lee Sedol, one of the world's best players of Go, lost a match in Seoul to a computer program called AlphaGo by four games to one. It was a big event, both in the history of Go and in the history of artificial intelligence.

    Oct 18, 2017

  • How To Spend $1900 On Gene Tests Without Learning A Thing

    MIT Technology Review | Science and marketing clash in the "jungle" of direct-to-consumer DNA apps.

    Oct 18, 2017

  • GA4GH Announces New Strategic Plan, Vision To Create Standards

    Bio-IT World | At a plenary session this morning in Orlando, Florida, the Global Alliance for Genomics and Health (GA4GH) announced a new vision and five-year strategic plan: GA4GH Connect, aiming to drive uptake of GA4GH standards and frameworks for genomic data discovery, analysis, and interpretation in order to enable responsible sharing of clinical-grade genomic data by 2022.

    Oct 17, 2017

  • 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