Bio-IT World | Expert Commentary | In the past decade, clinical trial technology has undergone a series of evolutions in its design, capability and deployment. From the early days of remote data capture to full-suite clinical trial management solutions, this evolution is redefining clinical research. Yet despite its dominance, clinical research technology has suffered from significant resistance at the study site level, which can be traced to a deficit in one basic element: user-centered design. 

Technology Review | Three new chips out of China might lead to a Chinese supercomputer that can compete on the international scale. The three newest members of the Godson processor family are a one-gigahertz, eight-core Godson 3B; the most powerful 16-core Godson 3C; and the one-gigahertz Godson 2H.

Bio-IT World | The 2011 Bio-IT World Best Practices competition has released its call for entries. Since 2003, Bio-IT World's Best Practices competition has been recognizing outstanding examples of technology and strategic innovation initiatives across the drug discovery enterprise. The deadline for entry is January 14, 2011, and the early bird deadline is December 19, 2010.

Nature News | Anton, a specially-designed supercomputer, has simulated changes in a protein's structure over a millisecond, a time-scale more than a hundred-fold greater than previous records.

Bio-IT World | Eli Lilly will be closing the Lilly Singapore Centre for Drug Discovery by the end of the year, according to an email sent out this morning by Jonathon Sedgwick, Managing Director & Chief Scientific Officer, Lilly Singapore Centre for Drug Discovery (LSCDD).

San Diego Union-Tribune | Biotech companies as a group were profitable in 2009 for the first time ever, and the industry is continuing to move into the black.

Wall Street Journal | "DNA is everywhere but your physician's clinic," asserts Matt Ridley for the Wall Street Journal.

Personalgenomes.org | The Personal Genome Project (PGP) will enroll the next 1,000 participants this week (PGP-1K), and from there, begin enrollment of a 10,000 participant cohort (PGP-10K). 

Technology Review | Researchers at the J. Craig Venter Institute have used a rapid DNA-synthesis technique to synthesize a complete mitochondrial genome from scratch. Venter's Synthetic Genomics is partnering with Novartis to use the method to make vaccines rapidly.

The Australian | The founders of Genomes Unzipped -- the so-called "DNA Dozen' -- are releasing comprehensive personal genotyping data to the public as a challenge the common view that such information is so private and sensitive that it should not be widely shared.

Bio-IT World | SINGAPORE--GlaxoSmithKline announced the first four academic partnerships yesterday under the GlaxoSmithKline-Singapore Academic Centre of Excellence (ACE) announced in January. Awards went to researchers at the A*STAR-Singapore Institute for Clinical Sciences; Duke-NUS Graduate Medication School; National University of Singapore, School of Medicine; and the Singapore Eye Research Institute, and the National University Hospital.

Wired | IBM Research is partnering with 454 Life Sciences on a DNA Transistor, a solid-state device to sequence DNA while reducing cost and improving throughput. One promising method threads DNA through a nanopore.

Fortune | Pacific Bioscience CEO Hugh Martin believes in full disclosure. When diagnosed with cancer, he told the entire staff of his company the full details.

Bio-IT World | ‘There are no vendors that have their finger on the pulse of the problem. I can tell you in no uncertain terms that that is the case.” David Dooling, assistant director of informatics at The Genome Center at Washington University is not mincing words. But he’s not totally throwing storage vendors under the bus either. “The issue is that it’s not a single problem."

Bio-IT World | Even for a jaundiced veteran of the biopharmaceutical industry, it’s hard not to gush over the astounding output of today’s DNA sequencing machines. Twenty-five years ago, I was lucky to read 1,000 nucleotides off an X-ray film during my thesis work. A next-generation sequencing (NGS) instrument can deliver nearly a billion times that number of bases. The computer sector, Moore’s Law notwithstanding, can’t match that gargantuan gain. But what is the potential value of this new technology to biopharma?

The Tampa Tribune | To the medical school dean at the University of South Florida, the future of health care lies in a big field about 165 miles south of Tampa, along the road from Naples to Immokalee. But not everyone is convinced.

New York Times | Eli Lilly is preparing to ride the storm as it faces arguably the worst patent cliff in big pharma -- the loss of patent protection in the next seven years on drugs that have accounted for nearly three quarters of its sales.

Bio-IT World | As the cost of sequencing continues to freefall, the challenge of solving the data analysis and storage problems becomes more pressing. But those issues are nothing compared to the challenge facing the clinical community who are seeking to mine the genome for clinically actionable information—what one respected clinical geneticist calls “the $1 million interpretation.”

Bio-IT World | While the Panton Arms isn’t yet enshrined in scientific folklore like The Eagle—the pub a mile away where Jim Watson and Francis Crick exclaimed, “We’ve discovered the secret of life” to the bemused lunchtime crowd in 1953—that could change. Four chemists’ ideas for a new approach to DNA sequencing began to ferment there. “I remember going home feeling pretty excited, as I often did after a discussion at the Panton Arms,” Shankar Balasubramanian said. “I told the landlord that I’ll make him very famous one day. If I do, free beers for life! But I probably need to help him understand the importance first.”

Nature | Alexander Gann and Jan Witkowski, of the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, unveil newly found letters belonging to Francis Crick, who co-discovered the double helix in 1953 with Jim Watson.