Calculating Herd Immunity, Other COVID-19 News and Updates

Bio-IT World | Researchers are attempting to trace the emergence of COVID-19 in an effort to understand how pathogens jump from animals to humans. Meanwhile, mathematicians are developing a model estimating herd immunity. These updates, plus more, are featured in this week’s COVID-19 news from the biotech and research industries.

10x Genomics, Genestack, HudsonAlpha, And More: News From June 2020

Bio-IT World June featured exciting new, products, and partnerships from around the bio-IT community from innovating companies, organizations, and universities, including 10x Genomics, Genestack, HudsonAlpha, and more.

Paragon Applies Amplicon Panels for Targeted Sequencing To COVID-19

Bio-IT World | A key question for life sciences companies in the past few months has been how dramatically to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic. Paragon Genomics, based in Hayward, California, believes their amplicon-based target enrichment technology for targeted sequencing provides an answer.

EHRs + Machine Learning Decipher Drug Effects In Pregnant Persons

Bio-IT World | Researchers at Vanderbilt University Medical Center are using a novel, data-driven “target trial” framework to investigate the efficacy and safety of medicines in pregnant populations, who are underrepresented in randomized controlled trials.

Nanosponges Soak Up Virus, AI Tracks Mutations: The Week’s COVID-19 Updates

Bio-IT World | Questions are being raised about interferon’s role in treating SARS-CoV-2 infection, and the likelihood that it could inhibit lung tissue healing. And a new AI tool could track changes in the genetic structure of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Plus more from this week’s COVID-19 news and research in the clinical research industry.

Illumina Acquires BlueBee, Data Analysis, Management

Bio-IT World  Illumina announced that it will acquire the Netherlands-based bioinformatics company, BlueBee yesterday evening, giving the sequencing company another in-house bioinformatics platform, this one focused on downstream data analysis, management and collaboration. Financial details were not disclosed.

Follow the Money: $100M to DNAnexus, Investments in Machine-Learning for Drug Discovery, More

NIH Launches Centralized National Enclave For COVID-19 Patient Data

Bio-IT World The National Institutes of Health has launched a centralized, secure enclave to store and study vast amounts of medical record data from people diagnosed with coronavirus disease across the country. It is part of an effort, called the National COVID Cohort Collaborative (N3C), to help scientists analyze these data to understand the disease and develop treatments. This effort aims to transform clinical information into knowledge urgently needed to study COVID-19, including health risk factors that indicate better or worse outcomes of the disease, and identify potentially effective treatments.

The Pistoia Alliance Launches Toolkit, Accelerates Implementation of FAIR Data Principles

Bio-IT World   The Pistoia Alliance has launched a freely accessible toolkit to help companies implement the FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) guiding principles for data management and stewardship. The project was funded by pharmaceutical and biotech companies including AstraZeneca, Bayer, Roche, Novartis, Bristol-Myers Squibb, and AbbVie.

COVID-19’s Achilles’ Heel, Other News From the Bio-IT Community

Bio-IT World | The Bio-IT community is continuing to adapt to their newfound role in the fight against the COVID-19 virus. Recent updates include recent collaborations between organizations and universities, innovative modeling tools, and the discovery that the virus’ main protease may wind up being its Achilles’ heel.

MilliporeSigma, 10x Genomics Launch New Option For CRISPR Research

Bio-IT World News Brief | MilliporeSigma and 10x Genomics announced that they have developed a new option for biological experiments. The collaboration provides a linking of two innovative technologies: single cell transcriptomics and pooled CRISPR screening.

COVID-19 Update: Structural Modeling, New Funding, Vaccine News

Bio-IT World | More updates on SARS-CoV-2 research and COVID-19 from the Bio-IT Community including an app to create COVID-19 severity scores, new insights into viral behavior, modeling tools for the virus structure, and an influx of funding from Illumina, the Department of Defense, AstraZeneca, and more.

10x Genomics: Culture of Collaboration And A New Product Engine

Bio-IT World | At 10x Genomics—where the vision is to “master biology”—culture is key.

Studies Suggest COVID-19 Could Become Seasonal Virus, Other News

Bio-IT World | A review of coronavirus immunity studies suggest the COVID-19 virus could become the fifth seasonal coronavirus with recurring epidemics of lessening severity over the next several years. Over 200 SARS-CoV-2 genome sequences have now been completed and released. We round up the week’s research and industry news for COVID-19.

Intel, Penn Medicine Launch Federated Learning Model For Brain Tumors

Bio-IT World | The University of Pennsylvania and Intel have built a federation of 30 institutions to use federated learning to train artificial intelligence models to identify boundaries of brain tumors.

Benchling, BERG, Thermo Fisher Scientific, And More: News From May 2020

Bio-IT World May featured exciting new, products, and partnerships from around the bio-IT community from innovating companies, organizations, and universities, including Benchling, BERG, Thermo Fisher Scientific, and more.

HPC In Life Sciences: Why Cloud Computing Is Now Indispensable And How Organizations Can Prepare

Bio-IT World Contributed Commentary | Few disciplines have seen more rapid adoption of cloud computing than life sciences research. Datasets are easily anonymized; pipelines are generally comprised of cloud-friendly open-source tools, and data are often shared, making the cloud a convenient meeting point. Overshadowing all of these reasons, however, is an insatiable demand for computing power.

AI Applications for COVID-19 Research and Other News

Bio-IT World | A pair of studies demonstrate antibody responses to COVID-19 in primates. Researchers are applying artificial intelligence to lung images of COVID-19 patients. An accurate, easy-to-use, fully disposable, rapid and handheld test that consumers and healthcare providers in clinics can use to detect active SARS-CoV-2. We round up the week’s research and industry news for COVID-19.

How Data Integration Can Save Lives and Economies During Pandemics

Bio-IT World Contributed Commentary | Advances in medicine, aided by technology, have saved many lives, no doubt. Credit can be given to many technologies, but when a new kind of viral disease comes along such as COVID-19, we are once again humbled.

What We’re Discovering About Scientific Computing During A Pandemic