• Klebsiella Pneumoniae Superbug Killed Six at NIH Clinical Center

    Aug 22, 2012, 15:45 PM by Michael Croft
    Huffington Post | Scientists are reporting how next-generation sequencing identified a deadly antibiotic-resistant 'superbug' that spread alarmingly through the medical center at the NIH, ultimately claiming six lives before the source of infection was confirmed and the microbe eradicated.
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  • deCODE Study Finds Older Dads Pass On More Genetic Mutations

    Aug 22, 2012, 12:55 PM by Michael Croft
    Wall Street Journal | According to the latest publication from Iceland's deCODE Genetics, a sequencing study reveals that older fathers pass on more new genetic mutations to their children than younger fathers, thus increasing their children's risk of autism, schizophrenia and other diseases.
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  • QED: Hopkins Algorithm Ranks the Beauty of Drug Chemistry

    Aug 21, 2012, 08:40 AM by Michael Croft
    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.
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  • Amazon Web Services Launches Amazon Glacier Archival Storage

    Aug 21, 2012, 07:55 AM by Michael Croft
    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. 
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  • The Biophysics of 3-D Genome Modeling

    Aug 20, 2012, 15:00 PM by Michael Croft
    Wired | Harvard University biophysicist Erez Lieberman Aiden is helping to open new windows into the study of the 3-D topological structure of chromosomes.
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  • Halcyon Molecular Quietly Shuts Down Sequencing Operation

    Aug 20, 2012, 12:50 PM by Michael Croft
    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.
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  • Reproducibility Initiative to Increase the Value of Biomedical Research

    Aug 17, 2012, 13:15 PM by Michael Croft
    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 Reproductibility Initiative -- a new program to help scientists, institutions and funding agencies validate their critical research findings.
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  • Are Drug Companies Faking an Innovation Crisis? Uh, No.

    Aug 17, 2012, 09:25 AM by Michael Croft
    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.”
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  • Thirty Groups Enter CLARITY Clinical Genome Interpretation Challenge

    Aug 16, 2012, 15:25 PM by Michael Croft
    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.  
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  • By George: Researchers Turn Book Into DNA Code

    Aug 16, 2012, 14:35 PM by Michael Croft
    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. 
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  • Myriad Wins Gene Patent Ruling From U.S. Appeals Court

    Aug 16, 2012, 14:05 PM by Michael Croft
    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. 
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  • The Human Microbiome: Me, Myself, Us

    Aug 16, 2012, 13:50 PM by Michael Croft
    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. 
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  • Is the Better Benchtop DNA Sequencer Losing the Marketing War?

    Aug 15, 2012, 11:30 AM by Michael Croft

    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. 

     

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  • How the FDA Stymies Progress -- and How to Get Around It

    Aug 13, 2012, 12:00 PM by Michael Croft

    The Skeptical Outsider GUEST COMMENTARY| Are cells taken from your body and then returned to it “drugs”? They are, according to a recent court ruling that granted the FDA an injunction against the developers of an adult stem cell therapy. And that doesn't sit well with Bill Frezza.

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  • Found in Translation: Where Do Cures Come From?

    Aug 13, 2012, 11:25 AM by Michael Croft
    The Guardian | In this opinion piece, Jenny Rohn asks, What's the best way of doing research? Throwing money at bright minds or trying to solve a particular problem? Or is there a third way? 
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  • Researchers Germinate Novel Approach to Big Bio Data

    Aug 10, 2012, 13:50 PM by Michael Croft
    Datanami | C. Titus Brown heads MSU’s lab for Genomics, Evolution, and Development, which recently undertook the task of researching large collections of metagenomics data. The project was so complex that Brown’s team had to fashion a solution to solve a specific problem.
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  • Eric Schadt: Why Biology Needs a Steve Jobs

    Aug 10, 2012, 08:35 AM by Michael Croft

    Nature Biotechnology | Eric Schadt, director of Mount Sinai's new Institute for Genomics and Multiscale Biology, discusses his vision to spend $100 million launching Mount Sinai to the forefront of the genomics revolution—and why he's enlisting Wall Street quants, user interface gurus and Facebook's former data whiz to do it.

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  • Nic Volker, Living on the Edge of Science

    Aug 9, 2012, 10:10 AM by Michael Croft

    JS Online | Two years after exome sequencing prompted a life-saving cord blood transplant, 7-year-old Wisconsinite Nic Volker is enjoying school, real food, good health and life in general. 

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  • Clinical Trial is Favorable for Microarray Prenatal Gene Test

    Aug 9, 2012, 08:40 AM by Michael Croft
    New York Times | The use of microarrays for prenatal testing to detect more genetic problems in a fetus than standard kayrotype testing could be headed toward wider use after encouraging results from an NIH-sponsored clinical trial of more than 4,000 pregnancies.  
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  • Physicians May Not Be Social, But They are Interactive

    Aug 9, 2012, 08:20 AM by Michael Croft
    Forbes.com | The desire to understand physician behavior, identify Key Opinion Leaders, and reach those influencers in a measured way is of extreme importance to pharmaceutical executives, writes Jim Golden in his latest blog.  
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