• Watching Protein Misfolding with Jaguar

    Jun 14, 2011, 10:25 AM by Michael Croft
    Oak 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.
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  • IntraLinks Survey Highlights Need for e-Clinical Document Exchange Tools

    Jun 14, 2011, 09:35 AM by Michael Croft

    Bio-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 Croft
    Bio-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. 
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  • Illumina Halves Sequence Costs, Launches iPad App

    Jun 10, 2011, 00:05 AM by Michael Croft

    Bio-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 Croft

    Bio-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 Croft

    Stephen 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 Croft
    Wall 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.
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  • Jackson Lab Shelves Florida Personalized Medicine Institute

    Jun 3, 2011, 16:05 PM by Michael Croft
    Sarasota 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.  
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  • Rothberg's Ion Torrent Decodes 'Frankenstein Bacteria'

    Jun 3, 2011, 15:45 PM by Michael Croft
    Hartford 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.
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  • German Teams, BGI and Life Technologies Identify Deadly European E.coli Strain

    Jun 2, 2011, 08:05 AM by Michael Croft
    Bio-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.  
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  • Biogen Idec's Next Steps

    May 31, 2011, 00:40 AM by Michael Croft
    Boston 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.
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  • RNA Editing Paper Draws Computational Criticism

    May 26, 2011, 01:40 AM by Michael Croft
    Nature | 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.
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  • The Most Innovative Countries--Who's On Top?

    May 26, 2011, 01:30 AM by Michael Croft
    Forbes | 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.
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  • RNA Editing Much More Widespread than Imagined

    May 20, 2011, 02:50 AM by Michael Croft
    Nature | 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.
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  • NVIDIA Unveils New Flagship GPU Processor

    May 18, 2011, 01:10 AM by Michael Croft
    Bio-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. 
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  • Dean Charney Lures PacBio’s Schadt to Mount Sinai

    May 16, 2011, 15:25 PM by Michael Croft
    Bio-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.
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  • PacBio CSO Eric Schadt to Lead ‘Multiscale Institute’ at Mount Sinai

    May 16, 2011, 06:25 AM by Michael Croft

    Bio-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.  

     

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  • The Newest of the Next Generation Sequencers

    May 16, 2011, 00:05 AM by Michael Croft
    Technology Review | The newest sequencing company, Noblegen, is developing a "simplified version" of nanopore sequencing, says the company, that will be able to sequence a genome every 30 seconds.
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  • Broad Institute, IBM, Among EMC’s Inaugural ‘Data Heroes’

    May 12, 2011, 00:05 AM by Michael Croft
    Bio-IT World | The IT group at the Broad Institute and the IBM team that developed the Watson supercomputer, are among the winners of EMC’s inaugural Data Hero Awards, announced this week at EMC World in Las Vegas.   
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  • Battelle Report Finds $800-Million Economic Impact of Human Genome Project

    May 11, 2011, 12:00 PM by Michael Croft
    Fast Company | The Human Genome Project has driven $796 billion in economic impact and generated $244 billion in total personal income, according to a new report from Battelle.  
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