Bio-IT World | Organizers of the CLARITY Challenge at Boston Children's Hospital are
thrilled that 30 academic and commercial organizations have entered the genome
interpretation contest, although the entrant list does not include the major US/UK genome
centers and consumer genomics firms. Read More
Bio-IT World | Companies such as Optibrium are praising the "Quantitative Estimate of
Drug-Likeness" (QED) algorithm to rank chemical compounds based on their oral
bioavailability, developed by the University of Dundee's Andrew Hopkins and colleagues.
Read More
Bio-IT World | How does 1 cent/Gigabyte sound? That's the potential pricepoint of
Amazon's new Amazon Glacier archival storage solution designed for data archiving and
backup that is already gaining the attention of companies such as Complete Genomics.
Read More
Reproducibility Initiative to Increase the Value of Biomedical Research
Bio-IT World | Science Exchange, the open-access publisher Public Library of Science (PLOS),
and open data repository figshare, have announced the launch of the Reproducibility
Initiative -- a new program to help scientists, institutions and funding agencies validate their
critical research findings. Read More
ELSEWHERE IN THE NEWS
The Biophysics of 3-D Genome Modeling
Wired | Harvard University biophysicist Erez Lieberman Aiden is helping to open new windows
into the study of the 3-D topological structure of chromosomes. Read More
Halcyon Molecular Quietly Shuts Down Sequencing Operation
GigaOM | Halcyon Molecular, one of the many companies that was working on next-generation
DNA sequencing technologies, has quietly ceased operations due to a shortage of funds,
GigaOM reports. Read More
Are Drug Companies Faking an Innovation Crisis? Uh, No.
Discover Magazine | Derek Lowe, a veteran pharmaceutical chemist and blogger, provides a
withering rebuttal of a recent commentary in the British Medical Journal that argued that the
"widely touted innovation crisis in pharmaceuticals is a myth." Read More
The Human Microbiome: Me, Myself, Us
The Economist | Looking at human beings not just as individuals but as ecosystems that
contain trillions of collaborating and competing microbial species could change the practice
of medicine. Read More
By George: Researchers Turn Book Into DNA Code
Wall Street Journal | Harvard University researchers led by George Church have encoded
the text of Church's forthcoming book Regenesis into DNA and then accurately read back the
text, they report in Science magazine. Read More
Myriad Wins Gene Patent Ruling From U.S. Appeals Court
Reuters | By a vote of 2-to-1, a federal appeals court has upheld its decision to uphold
Myriad Genetics' patents on the BRCA1 and BRCA2 breast and ovarian cancer genes, after
the U.S. Supreme Court told it to take another look at the hotly contested case. Read More
Is the Better Benchtop DNA Sequencer Losing the Marketing War?
Forbes.com | According to an analyst at Macquarie Equities Research, in the battle of
benchtop sequencers the Ion Torrent PGM is outselling the Illumina MiSeq by several hundred
units, even though researchers tend to favor the MiSeq's technical performance. One reason
might be that the PGM is $50,000 cheaper than the MiSeq. Read More