• Global Alliance for Genomics & Health Argues for Federated Data Ecosystem

    Bio-IT World | In a perspective article in the June 10 issue of Science (DOI: 10.1126/science.aaf6162), 31 authors from The Global Alliance for Genomics and Health challenged the genomics community to adopt a federated ecosystem for sharing genomic and clinical data.

    Jun 9, 2016

  • Omicia Closes $23 Million Series B

    Bio-IT World News Brief | Omicia today announced the completion of a $23 million Series B financing round. Several new investors participated in the round, including UPMC Enterprises, Roche Venture Fund, LDV Partners, Ping An Ventures, and a large genomics investor, as well as existing investors ARTIS Ventures, Acadia Woods Partners and Buchanan Investments.

    Jun 8, 2016

  • IBM joins R Consortium

    Computerworld | IBM will back efforts to create infrastructure and best practices for the R community, as well as promote use of the language.

    Jun 6, 2016

  • Big Biotech is here — and its starting to look a lot like Big Pharma

    STAT | There are 17 biotech companies in the US that generate more than $500 million per year in revenue. And they're increasingly focused on buying innovative new products through mergers and acquisitions, rather than developing them in house.

    Jun 6, 2016

  • AIDS Grants Target HIV Persistence

    Bio-IT World News Brief | amfAR, The Foundation for AIDS Research, has awarded seven scientists a total of approximately $1.4 million in research grants to better understand why HIV persists in the body despite effective antiretroviral therapy (ART) and pursue novel pathways to a cure. This round of grants was supported in part by the Foundation for AIDS and Immune Research (FAIR).

    Jun 3, 2016

  • precisionFDA Announces Winners of Consistency Challenge

    Bio-IT World | Best Practices Winner | The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) commissioner Dr. Robert Califf announced the winners of the first precisionFDA community challenge last month. Awards for the Consistency Challenge were given to Rafael Aldana and his team from Sentieon for Best Performance and Highest Reproducibility, and to Deepak Grover from Sanofi-Genzyme for Highest Accuracy.

    Jun 3, 2016

  • CRISPR gene-editing system unleashed on RNA

    Nature News & Comment | Cutting tool could be used to study RNA's role in disease.

    Jun 3, 2016

  • Texas goes big with 18-petaflop supercomputer

    Computerworld | It will help reduce the research backlog. Although the current supercomputer has run seven million jobs representing the work of some 10,000 researchers, the Texas center still fields five times as many requests for time on the system as it can deliver.

    Jun 3, 2016

  • Sharp rise in cancer drug spending forecast but access remains a problem

    STAT | Last year, annual global spending on cancer treatments and drugs used for supportive care hit $107 billion, up 11.5 percent from 2014.

    Jun 2, 2016

  • Novartis CEO on Why the Firm Just Opened a Major R&D Facility in China

    Fortune | The Novartis CEO is betting China will play a key role in discovering life-changing drugs. The firm opened an R&D facility in Shanghai.

    Jun 2, 2016

  • May New Products

    Bio-IT World | News and products from 10x Genomics, DirectData Networks, BT, The Genome Analysis Centre, Veeva and more.

    May 27, 2016

  • A Road Map for 21st Century Drug Discovery

    Bio-IT World | Book Review | Merging bioinformatics, computational biology, and technology are clearly important parts of the drug discovery equation. But in his new book, William Loging argues that IT is not a silver bullet, and user-centric design must be a key component.

    May 26, 2016

  • Using CRISPR To Learn How a Body Builds Itself

    The Atlantic | The popular gene-editing technique can deliver a step-by-step account of how a single-cell embryo becomes a trillion-cell animal.

    May 26, 2016

  • Oxford Nanopore's London Calling Kicks Off

    Bio-IT World Roundup | London Calling, Oxford Nanopore’s user group conference, began this morning in London. The user community looks to the London Calling event for news and announcements from Oxford, and each attendee will receive the new MinION Mk 1B at the event.

    May 25, 2016

  • White House Announces Data Security Policy Principles for Precision Medicine Initiative

    Bio-IT World  The White House announced the final Data Security Policy Principles and Framework (Security Framework) for the Precision Medicine Initiative (PMI) this afternoon. Sylvia Mathews Burwell, Secretary of Health and Human Services; and Lisa O. Monaco, Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism, laid out a security framework for institutions who participate in the PMI and provides a risk management approach to achieving those principles. Federal PMI agencies have committed to integrate the framework throughout all PMI activities

    May 25, 2016

  • Reality check on reproducibility

    Nature News & Comment | A survey of Nature readers revealed a high level of concern about the problem of irreproducible results.

    May 25, 2016

  • WuXi NextCODE, Huawei Launch Precision Medicine Cloud for China

    Bio-IT World Brief | WuXi AppTec and Huawei launched the China Precision Medicine Cloud today. The two companies hope the platform will support the Chinese government’s Precision Medicine Initiative, and link researchers across China through a secure nationwide network.

    May 24, 2016

  • This Machine Spits Out Pills In A Whole New Way

    NPR.org | A refrigerator-sized machine could someday make lifesaving drugs on site when outbreaks occur or where medicine is in short supply, like on the battlefield.

    May 23, 2016

  • Review Twin Books on the Genome Far From Identical

    New York Times | Dr. Siddhartha Mukherjee offers a soaring epic, while Dr. Steven Lipkin watches a revolution in genomics unfold in the clinic.

    May 19, 2016

  • Inside Vicarious the Secretive AI Startup Bringing Imagination to Computers

    MIT Technology Review | By reinventing the neural network, the company hopes to help computers make the leap from processing words and symbols to comprehending the real world.

    May 19, 2016