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Everything You Know Is Wrong
Jun 20, 2011, 11:05 AM by Michael CroftBio-IT World | I’m new to your neighborhood, a refugee from the telecommunications and semiconductor industries where I spent the last thirty years living under the relentless Darwinian pressure of Moore’s Law: better, faster, cheaper, or die. Examining your world of drug development, medical practice, and health care delivery in what economists euphemistically call a “mixed economy” will be a bit of an Alice-through-the-looking-glass experience. With your forbearance I’d like to ask some questions, and share some wonder and dismay. Maybe we’ll both learn something.Full story -
Whole Genome Sequencing Identifies Key Mutations in Fraternal Twins
Jun 15, 2011, 16:35 PM by Michael CroftHouston Chronicle | The teenage fraternal twins of LIfe Technologies CIO Joe Beery, both diagnosed with dopa-responsive dystonia, are thriving following the identification of key mutations affecting neurotransmitter production using whole-genome sequencing performed by a team at the Baylor College of Medicine (BCM) genome center, and published in Science Translational Medicine.Full story -
23andMe Reaches 100,000 Records in DNA Database
Jun 15, 2011, 09:40 AM by Michael CroftSan Jose Mercury News | Consumer genomics company 23andMe has announced that it has built what co-founder Anne Wojcicki calls one of the world's largest DNA databases, with the number of people exceeding 100,000.Full story -
Watching Protein Misfolding with Jaguar
Jun 14, 2011, 10:25 AM by Michael CroftOak Ridge National Laboratory | Researchers at North Carolina State University have figured out how copper induces misfolding in teh protein associated with Parkinson's disease, thanks to the Jaguar supercomputer at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.Full story -
IntraLinks Survey Highlights Need for e-Clinical Document Exchange Tools
Jun 14, 2011, 09:35 AM by Michael CroftFull storyBio-IT World | One week ahead of the annual Drug Information Association (DIA) conference, a new survey conducted on behalf of IntraLinks by CenterWatch, reveals a dearth of use in web-based tools for clinical document exchange.
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Genome Scan Predicts Splicing Mutations
Jun 13, 2011, 15:00 PM by Michael CroftBio-IT World | According to a paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences this week, nearly one third of the mutations listed in the Human Gene Mutation Database (HGMD) may be caused by splicing errors in mRNA. “Splicing mutations are already known to be a large fraction, but we’re saying they are even more,” said William Fairbrother, assistant professor of biology at Brown University and senior author of the study.Full story -
Illumina Halves Sequence Costs, Launches iPad App
Jun 10, 2011, 00:05 AM by Michael CroftFull storyBio-IT World | Confirming hunches in the industry, Jay Flatley annouced another price drop in Illumina's Individual Genome Sequencing (IGS) service. At the Consumer Genetics Show in Boston, the Illumina president and CEO knocked $10,000 from the price of individual genome sequencing, bringing the service to $9,500.
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Decision Support in High Definition
Jun 10, 2011, 00:00 AM by Michael CroftFull storyBio-IT World | A high-definition touch screen that fosters collaboration by enabling drug developers to manipulate molecules, much like Tom Cruise sifting through a crime scene in Steven Spielberg’s Minority Report, was the high point of Bryn Roberts’ keynote on novel decision support technologies at the 2011 Bio-IT World Conference.
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The Search for Answers
Jun 8, 2011, 02:20 AM by Michael CroftFull storyStephen Wolfram computes answers to never before asked questions. By Kevin Davies June 8, 2011 | “Wolfram|Alpha knows about lots of things,” said its creator, the British mathematical prodigy Stephen Wolfram, CEO of Wolfram Research and author of A New
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Oncologists Consider Genomic Treatments
Jun 6, 2011, 01:50 AM by Michael CroftWall Street Journal | Over the weekend at the American Society of Clinical Oncology meeting, researchers discussed using genomics to match drugs to the biological drivers of tumors in patients.Full story -
Jackson Lab Shelves Florida Personalized Medicine Institute
Jun 3, 2011, 16:05 PM by Michael CroftSarasota Herald Tribune | The famous Jackson Laboratory in Maine is pulling out of a planned venture to build a personalized medicine institute in Sarasota County, Florida.Full story -
Rothberg's Ion Torrent Decodes 'Frankenstein Bacteria'
Jun 3, 2011, 15:45 PM by Michael CroftHartford Courant | "It really is a Frankenstein bacteria," says Jonathan Rothberg, founder of Ion Torrent, the Connecticut next-generation sequencing company that has decoded the hybrid E.coli bacterium that has caused fatalities in Germany.Full story -
German Teams, BGI and Life Technologies Identify Deadly European E.coli Strain
Jun 2, 2011, 08:05 AM by Michael CroftBio-IT World | Two teams of German researchers, one collaborating with BGI-Shenzhen in China, the other with LIfe Technologies, have identified some of the key genes responsible for the unusual toxicity and resistance of this hybrid strain, which has already claimed 17 lives in Germany.Full story -
Biogen Idec's Next Steps
May 31, 2011, 00:40 AM by Michael CroftBoston Globe | Since George Scangos took the lead at Biogen Idec, he has cut 13% of the company's gobal workforce, dumped more than a dozen drug development projects, and halted the company's move from Cambridge to Weston, Mass.Full story -
RNA Editing Paper Draws Computational Criticism
May 26, 2011, 01:40 AM by Michael CroftNature | Computational biologists are pointing out flaws in the observations of authors of a Science paper published last week that claimed that RNA editing changes bases after transcription.Full story -
The Most Innovative Countries--Who's On Top?
May 26, 2011, 01:30 AM by Michael CroftForbes | In 2009, Chinese researchers published more IT papers than US researchers--the first time China has passed the US. However in Biology and Medicine, the US still published far more papers than any other country, likely due to big pharma's presense and the clinical trial infrastructure.Full story -
RNA Editing Much More Widespread than Imagined
May 20, 2011, 02:50 AM by Michael CroftNature | Results published in Science yesterday suggest that the DNA-RNA-protein workflow that forms the basis of biology may not be as straightforward as we thought.Full story -
NVIDIA Unveils New Flagship GPU Processor
May 18, 2011, 01:10 AM by Michael CroftBio-IT World | The latest flagship GPU (graphics processing unit) processor from NVIDIA, the Tesla M2090, and a new GPU server from HP, demonstrate the growing potential of GPUs in life science applications.Full story -
Dean Charney Lures PacBio’s Schadt to Mount Sinai
May 16, 2011, 15:25 PM by Michael CroftBio-IT World | Dennis Charney, Dean of the Mount Sinai School of Medicine (MSSM), says he went after Pacific Biosciences CSO Eric Schadt "big time" to head MSSM’s new Institute of Genomics and Multiscale Biology and the Department of Genetics.Full story -
PacBio CSO Eric Schadt to Lead ‘Multiscale Institute’ at Mount Sinai
May 16, 2011, 06:25 AM by Michael CroftFull storyBio-IT World | Pacific Biosciences has announced a bi-coastal partnership with Mt Sinai School of Medicine (MSSM) in New York City to create the Institute for Genomics and Multiscale Biology. The new institute will be lead by PacBio’s chief science officer Eric Schadt, who will nonetheless retain his position at PacBio.