• Researchers Present A Case for Global Research Data Sharing

    Bio-IT World News Brief | Baylor professors recently published a paper in PLOS Biology examining evidence of public resistance towards sharing genomic and other health data across national borders. The authors also lay out the case for global data sharing.

    Nov 8, 2016

  • Understanding Africas Diverse Gene Pool Can Help Fight Lifestyle Diseases

    The Conversation | Cracking genetic responses to the changing environment in Africa would open a new frontier in the drive against rising non-communicable diseases on the continent.

    Nov 7, 2016

  • Supercomputing the p53 Protein as a Promising Anticancer Therapy

    Texas Advanced Computing Center | Computational biophysicist Rommie Amaro is using the Stampede supercomputer at TACC to model the largest atomic level system of the tumor suppression protein p53 to date - over 1.5 million atoms. The simulations identify new "pockets" to reactivate p53 which would be a tremendous boost for future anti-cancer drug discovery.

    Nov 4, 2016

  • Tackling the Organizational Challenges Slowing Biotech

    Bio-IT World  “How do you change the way scientists operate in a fundamental way to win them over?” Matthew Trunnell, CIO at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Institute, asked the crowd at the Converged IT Summit* last week in San Diego during his opening keynote. While there were plenty of the talks wading into the weeds of how to build and structure data centers, much of the conversation at the Summit tackled the more amorphous problems plaguing bio-IT today: building a community that shares data and incentivizes collaboration.

    Nov 4, 2016

  • Weill Cornell Medicine and the New York Genome Center Awarded NCI Grant to Create Genomic Data Center

    Bio-IT World News Brief | Weill Cornell Medicine and the New York Genome Center  were recently awarded a federal grant from the National Cancer Institute to support a joint cancer genomics data center for the research and clinical interpretation of tumors. The grant will provide funding of $490,000 per year over the next five years.

    Nov 3, 2016

  • Flatiron Health And Foundation Medicine Partner To Launch Clinico-Genomic Database

    Diagnostics World News | Flatiron and Foundation Medicine today announced the launch of a clinico-genomic database designed to help researchers and biopharmaceutical partners accelerate the development of targeted therapeutics and immunotherapies to treat cancer. the clinico-genomic database, containing information on nearly 20,000 patients, is one of the largest and most comprehensive information efforts of its kind in oncology.

    Nov 3, 2016

  • New Data Show Power Limits of Bluebird’s Gene Therapy For Blood Diseases

    Xconomy | Bluebird Bio is releasing new data this morning that speak to both the potential and the limitations of a gene therapy it's been developing for two deadly blood diseases: sickle cell disease and beta-thalassemia.

    Nov 3, 2016

  • Optibrium And Collaborative Drug Discovery Integrate StarDrop With CDD Vault

    Bio-IT World News Brief | Optibrium and Collaborative Drug Discovery announced a collaboration to integrate the StarDrop and CDD Vault platforms. This creates a connection in real time between project data, securely held and managed in CDD Vault, and StarDrop’s unique compound design and optimization capabilities. 

    Nov 1, 2016

  • Young Scientists Ditch Postdocs for Biotech Start-Ups

    Nature News & Comment | Many biologists are founding their own firms as venture capitalists show increased interest in science.

    Nov 1, 2016

  • Smarter ELNs and Smarter Labs Make for Smarter Science

    Bio-IT World | New technology, new laws and regulations, and more cumbersome "Big Data" have together caused the standard, traditional electronic lab notebook (ELN) to obsolesce.  But some experts believe new digital-transformation technology—including the Internet of Things and cloud computing—will allow for enhanced ELNs that can address today's clinical pain points of efficiency, ROI, scientific contextual consistency, and risk reduction.

    Oct 31, 2016

  • Mark Zuckerberg Is Funding a Facebook for Human Cells

    MIT Technology Review | The billionaire is the first major donor to back the idea of creating an atlas of all human cells.

    Oct 31, 2016

  • Third Rock Ventures One of Biotechs Daring Investors Raises $616M For More Startups

    Forbes | Biotech venture capital is supposed to be the highest-risk/highest-reward type of investment there is. But many biotech VCs are actually pretty conservative, hesitant to wager on edgy science that might take a decade to pay off. Not Third Rock Ventures.

    Oct 31, 2016

  • Onboarding New Talent Post-IPO Turnover Of Biotech Boards

    Forbes | A biotech's Board often plays important roles in shaping the company's success or failure: contributing strategic guidance, providing proper governance, stewarding fiduciary responsibilities, raising a startups' profile, aiding business development, to name a few.

    Oct 31, 2016

  • Nation’s Report Card Shows Improvement In Science, But There’s Still Work To Do

    Bio-IT World | The White House released the National Assessment of Educational Progress, their report card for the nation’s educational systems. In the field of science, Tennessee was among the standouts of those recognized.

    Oct 28, 2016

  • Internet2, Google, BGI, and More: News from October 2016

    Bio-IT World News Briefs | News, products, and partnerships from around the bio-IT community including news from Internet2, Google, BGI, and more.

    Oct 28, 2016

  • China National GeneBank Opening Hopes To Provide Resource For Global Health

    Bio-IT World Brief | The official opening of the China National GeneBank (CNGB) marks a new phase in Chinese-International genomics collaboration, providing scientists from across the world with access to one of the world's most comprehensive and sophisticated biorepositories with the goal of enabling breakthroughs in human health research, and contributing to global biodiversity conservation efforts.

    Oct 26, 2016

  • Solving The Lack Of Diversity In Genomic Research

    MIT Technology Review | An overwhelming majority of the data collected is from people of European ancestry. But researchers are trying to change that.

    Oct 25, 2016

  • Chinese Firm Admits Its Hacked Products Were Behind Friday's DDOS Attack

    Computerworld | A Chinese electronics component manufacturer says its products inadvertently played a role in a massive cyberattack that disrupted major internet sites in the U.S. on Friday.

    Oct 25, 2016

  • The Trials of Juno

    The Economist | Juno Therapeutics, a young biotech firm focused on cancer, promises both risk and reward with its attempt to master the T-cell. The firm is on the forefront of the most promising area of cancer treatments in decades.

    Oct 24, 2016

  • Welcome to DNA.Land: Trait Prediction, A Breast Cancer Research Collaboration, And a Facebook Group

    Bio-IT World “We’ve already entered the era of ubiquitous genetic information.” says Yaniv Erlich, so he and colleagues have built DNA.Land, to crowdsource these available genomes from individuals. A ticker on the DNA.Land website counts almost 32,000 genomes deposited into DNA.Land so far. The project recently launched a collaboration with the National Breast Cancer Coalition and has started offering trait predictions. 

    Oct 21, 2016