Bio-IT World | A new collaborative study suggests that infection and exposure to coronaviruses induces long-lasting memory T cells, which could help in the management of the current pandemic and in vaccine development against COVID-19. This, plus more, is included in this week’s COVID-19 news from the biotech and research industries.

Bio-IT World Contributed Commentary | The last three years we have witnessed an exponential expansion of the cell and gene therapy space, both in the number of cell and gene therapies approved or in development, and the real and projected values of the market. This growth is rapidly changing the way we think about what medicines are.

Bio-IT World | It seems like a very long time ago, now, that Illumina and Pacific Biosciences dissolved their merger agreement, but in fact their announcement is just about six months old. Since then, PacBio has been busy reestablishing itself as an independent business and looking ahead, their sights set on the human genome sequencing market.

Bio-IT World Contributed Commentary | Mass spectrometry has transitioned from being used mostly in routine analytical applications to becoming a powerful biological method for protein quantitation.

Bio-IT World | Researchers from Cleveland Clinic have found unique genetic susceptibility to COVID-19 across populations in ACE2 and TMPRSS2. Elsewhere, the University of California Health has developed a unified, secure data set for use in COVID-19 research. This, plus more, is included in this week’s COVID-19 news from the biotech and research industries.

Bio-IT World | Duplex Sequencing, a technique for improving the accuracy of next-generation sequencing by more than 10,000-fold, could eliminate a good deal of the guesswork in advancing drugs to market.

Bio-IT World | TRENDS FROM THE TRENCHES | For most big pharma and other global enterprises, decades of growth have resulted in siloed operations, even as they seek breakthrough medicines. It is time for such a breakthrough; as an industry, we’re overdue.