• Pfizer, Roche Embrace the Microbiome, Leading $43M Bet on Second Genome

    Forbes | Scientists are super-excited about the way cheap, fast DNA sequencing technology is making it possible to gather vivid, detailed information about the microbiome. These are the trillions of bugs in our guts, and on our skin, that humans have co-existed with since the beginning. Drug companies, until fairly recently, haven't been [...]

    Apr 20, 2016

  • AWS Powers New Big Data Services with Giant Hard Disks

    Computerworld | Amazon Web Services is going retro to help companies deal with big data workloads: The cloud provider announced Tuesday that it's launching two new volume types for its Elastic Block Store service that are powered by traditional, spinning disk hard drives.

    Apr 20, 2016

  • Senators Seek to Legislate DNA Privacy, But Is It Really Possible?

    Techonomy | A new bill introduced by Senators Elizabeth Warren and Mike Enzi adds important privacy protections for genetic data. But real protection will be tough.

    Apr 20, 2016

  • Illumina Announces Winners of MiniSeq Scientific Challenge

    Illumina | The Illumina MiniSeq System, unveiled earlier this year, is the company's smallest and simplest next-generation sequencing (NGS) system to date. The Scientific Challenge Program was launched to highlight the range of applications that can be performed using Illumina's most affordable sequencer. After receiving more than 1,100 grant submissions from around the world, winners were announced from the University of Florida, North Carolina State University, and National University of Ireland, Galway.

    Apr 19, 2016

  • The 3 Big Technologies To Watch Over The Next Decade: Genomics Nanotechnology and Robotics

    Forbes | While smartphone apps are cool and add convenience to our lives, the real impact of digital technology lies in front of us, when second order technologies are applied to completely new problems.

    Apr 19, 2016

  • Odds and Ends from the 2016 Bio-IT World Conference and Expo

    Bio-IT World | At the 15th annual Bio-IT World Conference & Expo in Boston, speakers introduced projects like the latest update to GATK from the Broad Institute; the ISB Cancer Genomics Cloud for shared analysis of TCGA data; the Resilience Project at Mount Sinai; and the NCI Genomic Data Commons for harmonization of DNA data from disparate sources.

    Apr 15, 2016

  • Benjamin Langmead Named Fifteenth Annual Benjamin Franklin Award

    Bio-IT World | Benjamin Langmead, an assistant professor of computer science at Johns Hopkins University, was presented with the fifteenth Benjamin Franklin Award from Bioinformatics.org at the 2016 Bio-IT World Conference & Expo for his development of open source and cloud-based bioinformatics software.

    Apr 14, 2016

  • From Boutique Clinics to the Community Hospital: Precision Medicine at the Bio-IT World Conference

    Bio-IT World | In the closing plenary session of the Bio-IT World Conference & Expo last week in Boston, keynote speakers Yaron Turpaz of Human Longevity, Inc., Catherine Brownstein of Boston Children's Hospital, and Bill Evans of IBM Watson Health addressed the sticky question of how big data-driven healthcare can make the leap from high-priced luxury to standard practice.

    Apr 13, 2016

  • Eric Dishman Named Director of Precision Medicine Cohort Program

    Bio-IT World | The National Institutes of Health have named Eric Dishman, previously of Intel, as Director of the Precision Medicine Initiative (PMI) Cohort Program.  Dishman will lead NIH’s effort to build the PMI landmark longitudinal research study of one million or more U.S. volunteers to expand our ability to improve health and treat disease through precision medicine.

    Apr 12, 2016

  • Heidi Rehm on Variant Validation, Gene Validation, and Data Sharing

    Bio-IT World | Making the case for industry-led standards and more open and transparent data sharing at the opening plenary session at last week’s Bio-IT World Conference and Expo in Boston, Heidi Rehm, Ph.D., Director at Partners HealthCare Laboratory for Molecular Medicine and medical director at the Broad Institute Clinical Research Sequencing Platform, discussed the growing needs for improved clarity and consistency of genetic data for clinical and research purposes.

    Apr 12, 2016

  • Buzz About Initial Findings from Mount Sinai's Resilience Project

    Bio-IT World | The first paper connected to the Resilience Project, an effort by scientists at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai to find healthy individuals carrying mutations that seemingly ought to cause severe illnesses, was published yesterday in Nature Biotechnology.

    Apr 12, 2016

  • More News and Products from #BioIT16

    Bio-IT World | BOSTON—This week’s Bio-IT World Conference & Expo in Boston was a packed three days of rich content, industry news, and product announcements. We highlighted some of the early event announcements on the first day. Here is some of the news from the second half of this week.

    Apr 8, 2016

  • Bio-IT World Honors New Products

    Bio-IT World | BOSTON—A panel of expert judges and the Bio-IT community chose to honor six new products yesterday evening at the Bio-IT World Best of Show competition. A record-breaking 46 new products in IT and the life sciences were considered this year from the 190 Bio-IT World exhibiting companies.

    Apr 7, 2016

  • Bio-IT World Names 2016 Best Practices Winners

    Bio-IT World | BOSTON—Bio-IT World announced the winners of the 2016 Best Practices Awards this morning at the Bio-IT World Conference and Expo. Entries from AstraZeneca, DNAnexus, Amgen, Human Longevity, and XOMA were honored.

    Apr 6, 2016

  • Silicon Mechanics Names Two Research Cluster Grant Winners

    Bio-IT World | BOSTON—Silicon Mechanics announced the recipients of its fifth annual Research Cluster Grant (RCG) at the Bio-IT World Conference & Expo today. The University of New Orleans and the University of California, Merced were each awarded a high-performance computing (HPC) cluster with the latest high-performance processing and GPU technologies valued at over $100,000 for use in demonstrated research purposes going forward.

    Apr 6, 2016

  • Bio-IT World Conference & Expo Kicks Off in Boston

    Bio-IT World | BOSTON—The Bio-IT World Conference & Expo kicks off today in downtown Boston, and a host of companies have made news and announcements already. Here’s a roundup of news and notes we’ve seen so far.

    Apr 5, 2016

  • Sunquest Information Systems Acquires GeneInsight

    Bio-IT World News Brief | Sunquest Information Systems Inc. today announced the acquisition of GeneInsight Inc., an IT company that streamlines the analysis, interpretation and reporting of complex genetic tests, and was honored in 2013 at the Bio-IT World Best Practices Awards with the Editors’ Choice Award.

    Apr 4, 2016

  • Invitae Expands Genetic Testing Menu as Cheap, Inclusive Tests Are on the Rise

    Bio-IT World | Invitae—which began life in 2012 promising an “all-in-one” genetic test but has since become a piecemeal provider of gene panels—has launched a new series of pediatric tests, focusing on rare, high-impact variants.

    Apr 1, 2016

  • April Fools Day online prank round-up (2016)

    Computerworld | If it's April 1, it's the day the Internet is rife with pranks. Here are some of the best we've found.

    Apr 1, 2016

  • March News and Product Briefs

    Bio-IT World | The latest announcements and product launches from around the industry, including funding for new projects at 10X Genomics and Emulate, and the opening of a canine genotyping service.

    Mar 31, 2016