• Google Bets on Health

    Bloomberg | "The most you can lose is all your money," says Bill Maris, the founder of Google Ventures who is making big investments in the riskier, more highly regulated fields of health other Silicon Valley investors have avoided.

    Feb 15, 2016

  • Legal Tussle Delays Launch of Huge Toxicity Database

    Nature News | Toxicologists at Johns Hopkins have charted the health risks of nearly 10,000 chemicals to help predict the toxicity of untested substances.

    Feb 11, 2016

  • 10X Genomics Reveals Upgraded Platform with New Features for Single-Cell RNA Sequencing

    Bio-IT World | 10X Genomics, whose GemCode platform allows for much better structural variant resolution and haplotype phasing during short-read sequencing experiments, has released a new system, Chromium, that builds on the efficiency of GemCode and can label RNA molecules from individual cells.

    Feb 11, 2016

  • VeriStor Integrates SwiftStack Object Storage

    Bio-IT World Brief | VeriStor is integrating SwiftStack’s object storage into its enterprise cloud services portfolio, the companies announced this week.

    Feb 10, 2016

  • AbbVie Invests in Synthetic Microbes for Treatment of Intestinal Disorders

    Bio-IT World | This morning, AbbVie announced a partnership with Synlogic of Cambridge, Mass., to target inflammatory bowel disease with a strain of genetically engineered microbes that can sense and respond to symptoms as they occur.

    Feb 10, 2016

  • Fidelity, Biogen, Sanofi Join $45M Bet on Alzheimer's and Parkinson's Startup

    Forbes | The drug industry is pouring billions into R&D against Alzheimer's disease. Yet many people in the business will tell you not nearly enough is known about the underlying biology.

    Feb 10, 2016

  • Sure Genomics Wants to Sell Private Genetic Profiles for $2500

    The Verge | Sure Genomics, a startup based in Utah, launched a whole genome testing service today, but its plan to report a host of important health results is really testing the FDA.

    Feb 9, 2016

  • The Search for Schizophrenia Genes

    Slate | Larger and larger genetic studies are finding smaller and smaller effect sizes. What does this mean for drug development, clinical practice, and our view of mental illness?

    Feb 8, 2016

  • New Type of CRISPR Screen Probes the Regulatory Genome

    Bio-IT World | Scientists at MIT and Brigham and Women's Hospital have invented a "multiplexed editing regulatory assay" (MERA) to test large swathes of the genome in parallel for regulatory elements that can turn gene activity on and off over the course of a cell's development.

    Feb 8, 2016

  • Debugging Science Experiments at Elemental Machines

    Xconomy | A Cambridge startup is trying to remove extraneous variables from experiments with a "smart lab" that can better control for simple factors like temperature and humidity.

    Feb 3, 2016

  • Mobile DNA Sequencing in the Ebola Epidemic

    Bio-IT World | The results of a months-long effort to sequence virus samples in the middle of the largest Ebola outbreak in history, using the handheld MinION DNA sequencer and a miniature mobile lab, have been published in Nature.

    Feb 3, 2016

  • Venter Expands Attempt to Fight Disease, Increase Lifespan

    San Diego Union-Tribune | J. Craig Venter's company Human Longevity, Inc. has purchased LifebankUSA, a biobank that preserves stem cells from cord blood and placental tissue, growing an enterprise that will soon begin sequencing infants' genomes as a service.

    Feb 1, 2016

  • UK Scientists Gain Licence to Edit Genes in Human Embryos

    Nature News | A team at Francis Crick Institute has been permitted to use CRISPR-Cas9 technology in embryos for early-development research, but the work is still many steps away from genome-edited human beings.

    Feb 1, 2016

  • January News and Product Briefs

    Bio-IT World | The latest products and announcements from around the industry, including a high-throughput protein conformation analyzer, and updates to the cloud-based genome analysis services of both DNAnexus and Seven Bridges.

    Jan 29, 2016

  • 'Remarkable Turning Point' as Medical Journals Require Clinical Trial Data Sharing

    STAT | Harlan Krumholz, of the Yale Open Data Access project, speaks about a new proposal by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors.

    Jan 28, 2016

  • Scientists Move Closer to Understanding Schizophrenia’s Cause

    New York Times | A massive genomic study provides researchers with a strong case for a biological mechanism involved in the disorder, and helps explain why it often begins at a relatively young age.

    Jan 27, 2016

  • Ferring Pharmaceuticals to Fund Research Center for Microbiome-Based Therapies

    Bio-IT World News Brief | Swiss drugs company Ferring Pharmaceuticals will fully fund the creation of a joint research center with the Karolinska Institutet of Sweden, to conduct human microbiome studies with an eye on new therapies.

    Jan 27, 2016

  • Illumina Buys Conexio for HLA Typing Business

    Bio-IT World News Brief | Illumina has purchased Conexio Genomics, an Australian company that was one of the first to develop products for using next-generation sequencing in matching tissue donors and recipients through HLA genotyping.

    Jan 26, 2016

  • The Forest in Your Mouth

    Phenomena | A study using many parallel probes has revealed the spatial organization of different bacterial species in dental plaque. The strategy could be used to explore microbial ecology in all sorts of environments.

    Jan 25, 2016

  • How the World's Governments Have Regulated Human Genome Editing

    Bio-IT World | Members of McGill University’s Centre of Genomics and Policy have published a global survey of restrictions on modifying the human genome, concluding that many regulations are vague and that bans or limitations often relax over time.

    Jan 25, 2016