• The Trials of Juno

    The Economist | Juno Therapeutics, a young biotech firm focused on cancer, promises both risk and reward with its attempt to master the T-cell. The firm is on the forefront of the most promising area of cancer treatments in decades.

    Oct 24, 2016

  • Welcome to DNA.Land: Trait Prediction, A Breast Cancer Research Collaboration, And a Facebook Group

    Bio-IT World “We’ve already entered the era of ubiquitous genetic information.” says Yaniv Erlich, so he and colleagues have built DNA.Land, to crowdsource these available genomes from individuals. A ticker on the DNA.Land website counts almost 32,000 genomes deposited into DNA.Land so far. The project recently launched a collaboration with the National Breast Cancer Coalition and has started offering trait predictions. 

    Oct 21, 2016

  • Illumina Builds Africa GWAS Chip With H3Africa Initiative

    Bio-IT World | Last week, Illumina announced that it is creating an array for genome-wide association studies (GWAS) by the Human Heredity and Health in Africa (H3Africa) Initiative. The array—which isn’t available yet—will be include 2.5 million variations of specific interest to African populations.

    Oct 20, 2016

  • Perlara Signs Rare Disease Pact with Novartis

    Chemical & Engineering News | In a critical validation for a biotech firm espousing an unusual business model, Perlara has struck a deal to develop lysosomal storage disorder treatments with Novartis. The big pharma company will also make an undisclosed investment in the rare-disease-focused firm.

    Oct 20, 2016

  • News and Notes from ASHG 2016

    Bio-IT World News Brief | The American Society of Human Genetics annual meeting is currently underway in Vancouver, Canada. Here are some of the product news and company announcements released so far this week. Highlights include the Genome Aggregation Database, Illumina’s contribution to ClinVar, BabySeq news, and more.

    Oct 20, 2016

  • The Cure for Cancer Is Data—Mountains of Data

    WIRED | We must access genetic info from millions of cancer patients to make the connections necessary to battle the disease. It won't be easy, but Eric Schadt believes we can do it.

    Oct 19, 2016

  • CRISPR Therapeutics’ IPO Falls Short Of Target

    The Boston Globe | The gene-editing technology company with Cambridge operations sold 4 million share at $14 each. It had planned to sell 4.7 million shares at $15 to $17 apiece.

    Oct 19, 2016