• Digitization Vs. Digital Transformation at Alnylam

    Bio-IT World | Jim Bilotta found his home in orphan diseases early in his career, driven by both personal experience and the “unbelievable” impact on patients and their families. Today, as Chief Information Officer, head of IT, at Alnylam, he is still pursuing that impact. In the latest episode of Bio-IT World’s Trends from the Trenches podcast, Bilotta and Trends from the Trenches host, Stan Gloss, discuss digital transformation at Alnylam, and how Bilotta views the distinction between digitization and digital transformation.

    Mar 29, 2022

  • How Life Science Companies Can Harness the Predictive Value of Data to Drive Deeper Process Understanding

    Bio-IT World | As the biopharmaceutical industry begins to embrace advanced data collection and analysis tools, it finds itself facing a challenging question: How can drug manufacturers best harness all that data to improve capacity, reduce bottlenecks and cut costs? Establishing a strong digital backbone is the first critical step. From there, manufacturers need to figure out how to strengthen this digital backbone with technology that not only makes the data easily accessible, but also empowers manufacturers to analyze it and use it to make transformative predictions.

    Mar 28, 2022

  • Antibody That Opens Blood-Brain Barrier Might Also Ferry Lifesaving Drugs

    Bio-IT World | A future where single-chain nanobodies and biologically active proteins might voyage through the blood-brain barrier to treat neurological conditions—including Alzheimer’s disease and brain tumors—recently came closer into view with the discovery of an antibody that succeeded in temporarily opening and resealing the crucial filtering mechanism in mice.

    Mar 25, 2022

  • Blueprint For Radically Open, Citizen Science Approach To Aging Research

    Bio-IT World | Leonid Peshkin, Ph.D., is an unconventional man working at an Ivy League research university in a field he believes is rightfully viewed with “great skepticism” by mainstream biologists. The war on aging he is advancing puts to the test both interventions designed to extend healthspan (the period of life where one is healthy) and our understanding how the ravages of time get undone in the germline, an approach he likens to a Russian “Koschei” fairy tale where the secret to eternal health is in the egg.

    Mar 23, 2022

  • All of Us Program Releases 100K Diverse Whole Genomes

    Bio-IT World | Nearly 100,000 highly diverse whole genome sequences are now available through the National Institutes of Health's All of Us Research Program, the NIH announced today. About 50% of the data is from individuals who identify with racial or ethnic groups that have historically been underrepresented in research. This data will enable researchers to address yet unanswerable questions about health and disease, leading to new breakthroughs and advancing discoveries to reduce persistent health disparities.

    Mar 18, 2022

  • Bio-IT World Conference & Expo Explores Trends and Innovations Leading Life Sciences

    Bio-IT World | The Bio-IT World Conference & Expo kicks off the first week in May, back in its pre-pandemic Spring timeslot. We are looking forward to joining the Bio-IT community both in person and virtually and exploring the progress the community has made over the past two years. While the program is packed full of sessions to flag, here are the sessions outside of the track schedule that we are highlighting

    Mar 17, 2022

  • Element Biosciences Launches Benchtop Sequencer

    Bio-IT World | Element Biosciences has launched the Element AVITI System, a benchtop sequencer offering an unrivaled combination of performance, cost, and flexibility. Element’s proprietary Avidity Sequencing chemistries enable exceptional accuracy and cost efficiency that is unmatched by other benchtop systems, according to the company.

    Mar 15, 2022

  • New Tactic Proposed To Find Drugs For Alzheimer’s Disease

    Bio-IT World | A new method to screen drugs for treating Alzheimer’s disease could significantly improve the odds of therapeutic success by analyzing causal mechanisms in human neurons, according to Shankar Subramaniam, professor of bioengineering at the University of California (UC) San Diego. The plan now is to extend the work to organoids with microglia cells and vasculature, creating “realistic human brain avatars” for better understanding disease endotypes and their response to treatment.

    Mar 10, 2022

  • How to Manage Data as an Asset: Opinions from a Fortune 5 Executive

    Bio-IT World | As Executive Director of Enterprise Data Engineering and Analytics at CVS Health, Saira Kazmi uses her background in computer science and engineering in both academic and industry positions to inform her new role. She learned about the importance of iterative testing under the tightest timelines from the industry and got a first-hand view of the engineering rigor required to enable bioinformatics from her academic career. Now she is focused on creating data assets and managing the data life cycle at the enterprise level for a major healthcare player.

    Mar 8, 2022

  • Hormone-Producing Intestinal Cells Could Be Tapped As A Weight-Loss Remedy

    Bio-IT World | An organoid model is being used to flush out what’s behind production of a rare subset of cells in the human intestine and the hormones they manufacture, including four that seem to have the most effect on decreasing appetite.

    Mar 7, 2022

  • Genentech Builds Single Cell Proteomics Platform for Real Time Mass Spec Analysis

    Bio-IT World | Our technical capabilities are becoming increasingly granular, and proteomics is no exception. At the recent Molecular & Precision Med TRI-CON, Christopher Rose reported on how his group within the Microchemistry, Proteomics & Lipidomics department at Genentech where he currently leads the Discovery Proteomics group is working to build a single-cell proteomics platform.

    Mar 3, 2022

  • Cloud IT, Structural Variants, AI for Cancer, More

    Bio-IT World | Structural variant detection in FFPE samples, new federated network for genomic variant surveillance, Element Biosciences’ new acquisitions and collaborations, RNA profiling to predict preterm birth, release of multi-modal mental health dataset, AI in genetic variant analysis for cancer and beta-propeller protein-associated neurodegeneration, and more.

    Mar 2, 2022

  • Follow the Money: ML in Immunology, Virtual Drug Screening; Single-Cell Multi-Omic Sequencing; AI Marketplace

    Bio-IT World | AI and ML in immunological therapeutic development, virtual drug screening, microscope-based rapid pathogen diagnostics, improved genetic variant interpretation, and more.

    Feb 28, 2022

  • IDMP as a Tool for Better Organizational Data

    Bio-IT World | The clock is ticking on implementing the EMA's IDMP standard. With the release of EU IG v2.1, the industry is in the final stages of preparations for optional submission. While regulatory teams have made progress applying guidance to uniquely identify products and standardize information, more work remains to establish a proper data foundation that supports submissions under the new requirements.

    Feb 25, 2022

  • Expert Panel: Next Steps to Achieving Precision Medicine

    Bio-IT World | In the opening plenary panel for the Molecular and Precision Med Tri-Con this week, Robert Green, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, led a group in exploring how genomics, digital health, and more will converge to deliver precision health. He was joined by Megan Mahoney, Stanford University; Jessica Mega, Verily Life Sciences; Sir Mark Caulfield, Barts Life Sciences & Queen Mary University of London; and Lara Jehi, Cleveland Clinic.

    Feb 24, 2022

  • Bring Spatial Techniques to Understanding Alzheimer’s Disease Pathology

    Bio-IT World | At this week’s Molecular & Precision Medicine Tri-Con event, Simon Gregory, profession or neurology at the Duke University School of Medicine, outlined how his team has been using 10X Genomics’ Visium platform and Oxford Nanopore long read sequencing to understand the pathology of Alzheimer’s Disease development.

    Feb 23, 2022

  • New Tools for Achieving MRD Detection, Accuracy

    Bio-IT World | On the first morning of the Molecular & Precision Med Tri-Con event, Viktor Adalsteinsson, associate director of the Gerstner Center for Cancer Diagnostics at the Broad Institute, explored new tools and techniques for detecting minimal residual disease.

    Feb 23, 2022

  • Launching a New Trends from the Trenches Podcast

    Bio-IT World | Bio-IT World and BioTeam have been exploring the drivers of life sciences innovation for years during the Bio-IT World Conference & Expo and in regular columns in the publication. Now, together, we’ve launched a new podcast to capture in-depth conversations with leaders in the field about data, culture, technology, and more.

    Feb 22, 2022

  • Why R? The Next Generation in Pharma

    Bio-IT World | All industries drive innovation. The pharmaceutical industry is no different — except that their innovations improve or save lives. The clinical trial process is an important activity that any drug or medical device company works with daily. This is often a target for innovations so that they can improve activities within the trial process. For years, the industry has been dominated by SAS software for its statistical and clinical reporting. Organizations are now actively starting to use other technologies with the R language being heavily adopted.

    Feb 18, 2022

  • Pistoia Alliance Plans Microbiome Atlas

    Bio-IT World | The Pistoia Alliance launched a new project on the microbiome yesterday, which could help speed up the advancement of new, precision medicines and treatments. The project is funded by Bayer, BMS, Eagle Genomics, Pfizer, Roche and Takeda and aims to incorporate microbiome data into the drug development pipeline by gathering all existing microbiome data to create a global standardized ‘atlas’ that scientists can refer to when choosing new drug candidates.

    Feb 17, 2022