Investigator Shortage the Chief Challenge in India
By Deborah Borfitz

Part 1 of this series  appeared in the Jan. 22 issue of eCliniqua.

Improvements to the airlines and IT infrastructure in India have allowed international clinical research organization (CRO) Quintiles to migrate from the country's metropolitan areas to smaller cities and towns where equally competent investigators can be found, says Ferzaan Engineer, CEO for Quintiles India. "We move investigators up the experience ladder by monitoring and mentoring them more intensely than we would in an established center." This has meant investments in training, on-site study coordinators, development of standard operating procedures, and, in some cases, physical infrastructure such as study rooms and computer facilities.

Oversight of clinical trials by the Drugs Controller General of India is "pretty similar" to that of the U.S. FDA, and staffing has been strengthened to deal with the growing number of applications for carrying out clinical trials in the country, says Engineer. Ethical guidelines have been published by the Indian Council of Medical Research.

The regulatory environment may soon get a complete overhaul. A proposal before the Indian cabinet would move the current, under-financed drug authority into a single, larger organization - modeled after the FDA -- that also incorporates other areas of drug development, such as bioequivalence testing, biotechnology, and genetic research.  Read more.

NIH Helps Scientists Sleuthing for Clues in the Human Genome
By Deborah Borfitz

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is taking a leadership role in a new research approach that involves scanning the human genome looking for variations, or markers, that raise the risk of disease. Results of these genome-wide association studies (GWAS) are being posted in a database accessible to qualified researchers and will be used to come up with better detection, treatment, and prevention strategies, says Emily Harris, PhD, epidemiologist in the new Office of Population Genomics within the NIH's National Human Genome Research Institute.

Until completion of the Human Genome Project about five years ago, GWAS weren't even possible. The latest, whole-genome genotyping technology has now made them more financially feasible to carry out, says Harris.  Read more.

Evado Tackles EDC Shortcomings
By Deborah Borfitz

An established clinical products company in Melbourne, Australia, has developed its first piece of clinical trials software, which it says has a few advantages over the leading electronic data capture (EDC) vendors.

Last November, Evado was released by Invision IT Systems specifically to address the frustrations of researchers and the shortcomings of existing EDC systems. Evado is a "total management system" that does far more than capture data electronically, says CEO Jennie Anderson. It also has a repository for the uploading of images and other clinical documents, a built-in patient booking and tracking system, and can report on safety data in minutes. Read more.

LIFE SCIENCE JOBS

GNS Biotech - Software Engineer, User Interfaces and Visualization
The successful candidate will work closely with the internal applications team and external customers to design and develop novel visualization approaches for ensembles of biological networks and to integrate GNS solutions with existing visualization tools.  The candidate must be capable of producing highly professional and interactive interfaces quickly and efficiently and will be familiar with a make of interface technologies including both web-based interfaces and stand-alone applications.  Must work fluidly with a fast moving, interdisciplinary team, have excellent communication skills and a passion for learning new science. For more information please visit  http://www.gnsbiotech.com/careers/openings/


GNS Biotech - Software Engineer, Platform Development
The successful candidate will work closely with the algorithm development team to add newly developed algorithms into the production platform and the biological applications team to define and implement new functional requirements for the platform.  The candidate must be comfortable performing development on all aspects of the system, including the algorithms, data management and modeling, programmatic/scripting APIs, and user interface, as well as implementing automated tests for any of these components.  Major upcoming goals will be the optimization of algorithms to scale to larger computational problems and the development of infrastructure required for the application of the platform to different problem areas within biology.  The candidate will be responsible for design of new components and maintenance of existing platform code.  Must work fluidly with a fast moving, interdisciplinary team, have excellent communication skills and a passion for learning new science.  For more information please visit  http://www.gnsbiotech.com/careers/openings/


GNS Biotech - Computational Scientist, Discovery Biology
The successful candidate will reverse engineer models from large coherent data sets.  In addition, the candidate will complete genome-wide association analysis of disease and drug-response and develop methods to deal with population genetic structure, pedigrees, missing data and computational scaling.  The candidate will be comfortable handing millions of marker and molecular phenotype data points using database management systems and statistical scripting, and will show familiarity with data issues regarding major genotyping platforms and external database resources.  Must work fluidly with a fast moving, interdisciplinary team, have excellent communication skills and a passion for learning new science.  For more information please visit  http://www.gnsbiotech.com/careers/openings/

GNS Biotech - Computational Scientist, Biological Applications Candidates must have a combination of experience in the following areas: bioinformatics, microarray data analysis, algorithm development, statistics, machine learning, and network inference or reverse engineering methods.  Successful candidates will have a PhD (or be equivalently qualified) in Physics, Applied Mathematics, Computational Biology, Operations Research, or Engineering or have similar training thereof in the computational and biological sciences and 3+ years experience in the field.  Must work fluidly with a fast moving, interdisciplinary team, have excellent communication skills and a passion for learning new science.   For more information please visit  http://www.gnsbiotech.com/careers/openings/

Bio-Informatics Scientist -Van Andel Institute -  
opening at Van Andel Institute in Grand Rapids, Michigan.  Position supports collaborators using XB Bio-Integration Suite Software.  Qualified candidates will have Ph.D. in molecular biology or related discipline.  Two years post-doctoral training and experience in bioinformatics analysis of high throughput biological datasets. http://www.vai.org/employment/opportunities/881.

To have your job openings featured here, contact Lynn Cloonan for more information.

FEATURED EVENTS

The 1st Symposium on Protein Tomography, May 1,2008,Boston,MA
Research and development of bio-therapeutics are hampered by inconclusive evidence of how a drug operates on a target. Present-day approaches fall short of proving the mechanism of action at the molecular level.  This problem is solved by Sidec research and Protein TomographyTM, which together provide exploratory insight for antibody development projects.  Sidec provides their partners with exclusive biological information by visualizing and interpreting real drug-target interaction events in situ and in vitro.  Sidec Research Collaborations enable our partners to:  Prioritize the most promising antibodies.  Locate the antibody-binding epitope.  Protect IP with evidence on the mechanism of action.  Expedite the drug approval process.  Promote therapeutic products to licensees.  To register for the Sidec Symposium please click here 

Med-e-Tel, The International Educational and Networking Forum for eHealth, Telemedicine and Health ICT, offers opportunities to meet and network with qualified buyers, specialists, users, healthcare providers, industry representatives, researchers and policy makers from 50 countries around the world.  The event provides hands-on experience and an opportunity to discover and evaluate new products, systems and technologies and to hear about the latest ehealth/telemedicine news and trends. Med-e-Tel features an extensive educational and conference program with more than 150 presentations and workshops on a wide variety of telemedicine and ehealth topics.
Med-e-Tel 2008 is scheduled for 16-18 April in Luxembourg.  www.medetel.lu

TEPR 2008 - May 17-21, 2008
Mark your calendars for the premier EMR event of the year!  The 24th Annual TEPR Conference (Towards the Electronic Patient Record) will be held in sunny Ft. Lauderdale on May 17-21 of 2008.  Sponsored by Medical Records Institute, TEPR is an international conference which attracts over 3,500 decision makers interested in keeping up-to-date on all the latest EHR developments. With 22 parallel sessions each day and hundreds of industry exhibitors TEPR is widely recognized as the best annual educational conference and exhibition for health IT professionals and all others journeying Towards the Electronic Patient Record. With hundreds of vendor exhibits, world renowned speakers, and presentations by industry experts, this is an HIT event you don’t want to miss!  For more information or to register, visit www.tepr.com. 

Laboratory Informatics, March 25-April 3, 2008 San Francisco CA. 
IQPC’s 3rd Laboratory Informatics conference is timed to influence developments in a rapidly advancing field by bringing together the major users and providers in the broad field of laboratory informatics. The conference is targeted at decision makers, policy strategists, problem solvers, advisors, researchers and consultants in the fields of chemical and laboratory informatics. click here for more information.

Lean Six Sigma for Pharmaceutical, Biotech, and Medical Device Excellence
February 25-27, 2008, Philadelphia, PA.  At the 5th Lean Six Sigma for Pharmaceutical, Biotech and Medical Device Excellence we will bring you case studies that tackle the problems you are encountering, provide you with real-world solutions to your problems and introduce you to industry peers who have been able to overcome many of the challenges that Lean Six Sigma presents.  Click here for more details

The Association for Laboratory Automation (ALA) presents LabAutomation 2008, January 26-30, in Palm Springs, CA. LabAutomation2008, the world’s largest conference and exhibition focused exclusively on the rapidly growing field of laboratory automation, brings together a diverse group of academicians, scientists, engineers, business leaders, post-docs and graduate students from around the globe. For more details clicks here


Best Practices Awards Program - April 29, 2008
Bio-IT World announces its 2008 Best Practices Awards Program and calls for entries. Established in 2003, this prestigious award program recognizes the innovative utilization of technology and business strategies to accelerate drug and clinical development and ultimately improve human health. Click here for complete details and submit your entry today!

MIT Advanced Study Program  - Register for Spring 2008
Put MIT to work for you. The MIT Advanced Study Program (ASP) is now accepting applications for the Spring 2008 term.  ASP provides full and part-time certificate programs to working professionals at any stage of their careers. The program includes a flexible curriculum of MIT courses designed around the goals of participants and their sponsors.  Visit our website to view participant profiles & comments, watch our program video, and find out if MIT is right for you. http://web.mit.edu/mitpep/go/asp08-bioit.html

 
To have your event featured here, contact Lynn Cloonan for more information.