• Synthego Offers Free CRISPR Design Tool

    Bio-IT World News Brief | Synthego today announced new online CRISPR tools that make accessible over 100,000 genomes for free, fast, and easy world-class target design. Consisting of a guide designer and a design validator, Synthego’s software addresses gaps in the CRISPR design process, and allows both sophisticated and novice researchers to reduce the time it takes to create optimal designs from hours to minutes.

    May 16, 2017

  • Geneticists Enlist Engineered Virus And CRISPR To Battle Citrus Disease

    Nature News & Comment | Desperate farmers hope scientists can beat pathogen that is wrecking the US orange harvest.

    May 16, 2017

  • Scientists Raise Concern By Wanting To Create Synthetic Human Genomes

    NPR.org | In New York, hundreds of scientists discussed a highly ambitious and controversial project. They want to create synthetic genetic codes for all kinds of creatures - including the human genetic code.

    May 15, 2017

  • Nvidia CEO Software Is Eating the World but AI Is Going to Eat Software

    MIT Technology Review | Jensen Huang predicts that health care and autos are going to be transformed by artificial intelligence.

    May 12, 2017

  • Deep Genomics Shifts Focus to Genetic Medicines

    Bio-IT World | Earlier this month Deep Genomics announced a shift in company focus. Genetic testing was the Deep Genomics business plan in August of 2015; today the company is working to develop genetic medicines.

    May 12, 2017

  • Hacking Bio-IT: Bio-IT World Launches First Hackathon

    Bio-IT World | At the end of May, the Bio-IT World Conference & Expo will host its first Bio-IT Hackathon, this year focusing on FAIR data, data that are findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable.

    May 10, 2017

  • Edico Announces $22M Round

    Bio-IT World News Brief | Edico Genome announced today it has raised $22 million in a Series B financing to expand market adoption and product development of its DRAGEN platform. New investor Dell Technologies Capital, the venture arm of Dell Technologies, led the round and all existing investors participated, including Qualcomm Ventures, Axon Ventures and life sciences industry executive Greg Lucier.

    May 9, 2017

  • PacBio's Juliet Minor Variant Software

    Bio-IT World At PacBio’s SMRT scientific symposium and developers meeting last week held at the Leiden University Medical Center in the Netherlands, Lance Hepler, with PacBio, announced three apps coming in the next SMRT Analysis release: minor variants, structural variation, and multiplexed microbe WGS.

    May 8, 2017

  • NIH Grant Limits Rile Biomedical Research Community

    Nature News & Comment | Scientists are split over whether limiting grant support to individuals will help young researchers or hurt collaboration.

    May 5, 2017

  • 2017 Bio-IT World Best Of Show People's Choice Award Contenders

    Bio-IT World | Bio-IT World has announced the 2017 Best of Show competition with the Bio-IT World People’s Choice award. The four awards named by the judges and the People’s Choice Award will be announced at a live event on the Bio-IT World Expo floor at 5:30 pm on Wednesday, May 24.

    May 4, 2017

  • Anniversary Agenda: A Preview of #BioIT17

    Bio-IT World At the end of this month, Bio-IT World celebrates a milestone: the 15th anniversary of the Bio-IT World Conference & Expo. Fifteen years after we launched the event, it has grown into a community that we are proud of, a community of clever, innovative people working from all sides on the problems affecting life sciences. But we’re excited about more than just a champagne toast at this year’s celebration. Our 15th anniversary program in Boston, May 23-25, might be the best yet.

    May 3, 2017

  • Heymann and Bhowmik Launch Converge Boston’s Latest Venture Firm

    Xconomy | Boston's tech investing landscape has changed a lot in the past couple of years, with a wave of new early-stage funds popping up. That activity continued this week with the unveiling of Converge.

    May 3, 2017

  • Science Wins Reprieve In US Budget Deal

    Nature News & Comment | Congress gives National Institutes of Health a big boost and avoids cuts to research agencies sought by Trump.

    May 2, 2017

  • Personalis, Dovetail Genomics, DataDirect Networks, And More: News From April 2017

    Bio-IT World Brief | News, products, and partnerships from around the bio-IT community from innovating companies, organizations, and universities, including Personalis, Dovetail Genomics, DataDirect Networks, and more.

    Apr 27, 2017

  • BioRxiv Preprint Server Gets Cash Boost From Chan Zuckerberg Initiative

    Nature News & Comment | Money will be used to develop open-source platform and help put articles in web-friendly formats.

    Apr 26, 2017

  • NovaSeq Orders Bring Pleasant Surprises, Says deSouza

    Bio-IT World Illumina held its first quarter earnings calls yesterday. Francis deSouza, President and CEO, reported that the launch of the company’s new sequencing platform, NovaSeq, “surpassed our expectations, with more than 135 orders in Q1.” “As far out as we can see, there’s an insatiable demand for high throughput sequencing,” deSouza said.  

    Apr 26, 2017

  • Four Decades Of Hacking Biotech And Yet Biology Still Consumes Everything

    Forbes | Computer-aided drug design is a key contributor to pharma R&D today, but its just one of many contributors. Biology still consumes everything, and is the real constraint on developing new medicines today. Healthy, realistic skepticism regarding recent "software-eats-biotech" claims is needed.

    Apr 26, 2017

  • Genomenon Wins $1.8M NIH Grant To Automatically Curate Genomic Literature

    Bio-IT World Brief | Genomenon today announced a $1.8M grant awarded by the National Institutes of Health. The fast-track Small Business Innovation Research grant, awarded by the National Human Genome Research Institute, will fund Genomenon's further innovation in genomic analysis, efficiently streamlining the laborious literature research and curation process leading to faster patient diagnosis.

    Apr 25, 2017

  • Biotech Is The New Digital Says MIT Media Lab Founder

    Dezeen | Biotechnology is going to "govern the next decade of thought" at research institutions like the MIT Media Lab, says its founder Nicholas Negroponte.

    Apr 25, 2017

  • DNA Tests and Sometimes Surprising Results

    The New York Times | Think you know your racial background? A communications studies project involving ancestry DNA testing has led to interesting conversations on identity.

    Apr 24, 2017