• 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

  • Data Scientists = Research Parasites?

    Forbes | David Shaywitz weighs in on yesterday's editorial from NEJM calling data scientists "research parasites." He was glad, he says, for a major objection to finally be laid out. Now we can move past it.

    Jan 22, 2016

  • Why Data Scientist Is This Year's Hottest Job

    Computerworld | It's notable enough that close to half of the 25 "best jobs in America" named by recruiting site Glassdoor this week are tech-related, but even more striking is the fact that "data scientist" tops the list.

    Jan 21, 2016

  • Pharma Industry Calls on Governments to Fund New Antibiotics

    Phenomena | At the World Economic Forum in Davos, a group of almost 100 pharma companies and trade associations have released a bare bones outline of a plan to spur research into new antibiotics and encourage their responsible use.

    Jan 21, 2016

  • Can Big Genomic Data Reveal the Fundamental Units of the Brain?

    Bio-IT World | An ambitious new study from the Allen Institute for Brain Science illustrates how new methods for isolating and studying single cells, combined with massive RNA sequencing data, are changing the way neuroscientists think about the variety and organization of cells in the brain.

    Jan 20, 2016

  • The Muscular Dystrophy Patient and Olympic Medalist with the Same Genetic Disorder

    ProPublica | David Epstein tells the story of how a woman whose muscles disappeared discovered, through years of dogged research, that she shared a disease with a muscle-bound Olympic athlete.

    Jan 18, 2016

  • NIH Launches Centers for Common Disease Genomics

    Bio-IT World News Brief | With funding from the National Human Genome Research Institute, and the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, four new Centers for Common Disease Genomics could receive up to $260 million over four years.

    Jan 14, 2016

  • Intellia Therapeutics Forms New Division eXtellia for Joint Programs with Novartis

    Bio-IT World News Brief | Intellia Therapeutics, one of three major companies developing drugs based on CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing technology, has announced that its ex vivo programs will now be pursued in a new division of the company called eXtellia Therapeutics.

    Jan 14, 2016

  • Pathway Genomics, IBM Health App

    ZDNet | Pathway Genomics last week announced that the app the company has been developing with IBM Watson is now in closed alpha release.

    Jan 12, 2016

  • Jolly Jay Flatley Ushers in Another Big Year for Illumina

    Bio-IT World | The JP Morgan Healthcare Conference comes but once a year. Now it’s here, now it’s here, and Illumina CEO Jay Flatley has honored his seasonal tradition by releasing a new next-generation sequencer in his address to investors.

    Jan 12, 2016

  • Illumina Spinoff GRAIL to Trial Liquid Biopsies for Early Detection of Cancer

    Bio-IT World | Illumina, the dominant manufacturer of DNA sequencing technology, has formed a spinoff company called GRAIL to experiment with a pan-cancer blood test, an undertaking for which hundreds of thousands of patients may be enrolled in clinical studies.

    Jan 11, 2016

  • You're Probably Not Mostly Microbes

    The Atlantic | A new study revises the most famous "fact" about the microbiome: that microbes outnumber human cells in the body ten to one.

    Jan 8, 2016

  • BioMérieux and Illumina Use Whole Genome Sequencing to Monitor Hospital Infections

    Bio-IT World | In partnership with Illumina, multinational diagnostics company bioMérieux has launched EpiSeq, the first commercial system to monitor outbreaks in hospitals by sequencing and analyzing the whole genomes of bacteria.

    Jan 8, 2016

  • Moderna Signs Deal with Contract Researcher to Bring mRNA Therapies Into Clinical Trials

    FierceBiotech | Moderna Therapeutics, a high-profile private biotech with scores of preclinical projects, is finally moving toward human trials, recruiting one of the world's largest CROs to help get its much-hyped pipeline moving.

    Jan 8, 2016

  • A Precision Medicine Blitz in China

    Nature News | A new push by the Chinese government for research in genomic health is expected to dwarf the U.S. Precision Medicine Initiative in both scale and funding, although China's shortage of physicians and drug development capacity may make it hard to capitalize on new discoveries.

    Jan 6, 2016

  • Editas Medicine Files for CRISPR Technology's First IPO

    Bio-IT World | Still facing a looming patent dispute over its most basic intellectual property, Editas Medicine registered with the SEC for an initial public offering this week, making it the first therapeutics company based on CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing to go public.

    Jan 5, 2016

  • Who Can Host Biology's Big Data?

    Forbes | The National Institutes of Health expects to shortly phase out its funding for the maintenance of databases like Online Mendelian Inheritance in Man, leaving the future of these invaluable resources for the life sciences uncertain.

    Jan 4, 2016