• A Sensitive Tool for Detecting Indels

    Bio-IT World News Brief | A team from Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory has released an open source algorithm, called Scalpel, for finding insertions and deletions in next generation sequencing data sets, and published a paper in Nature Methods using this tool to identify mutations in children affected by autism.

    Aug 18, 2014

  • Could Pharma Companies Succeed in the Digital Health Market?

    Forbes | Jason Bloomberg speaks to pharma executives and industry observers who believe top drug companies could soon focus more of their efforts on creating electronic health platforms, collecting user data and to more precisely define disease risks and personalize prevention and treatment.

    Aug 18, 2014

  • New Alignment Method to Speed Up De Novo Assembly of Whole Genomes

    Bio-IT World News Brief | A paper posted this week to the preprint server bioRxiv describes MHAP, a new tool that can reportedly assemble whole genomes de novo from long-read sequencing data hundreds of times faster than previous workflows.

    Aug 15, 2014

  • FDA Plans to Introduce Web Portal for Tracking Device Submissions

    Regulatory Focus | The FDA's Center for Devices and Radiological Health (CDRH) is piloting a program that would let companies track the progress of medical devices and diagnostic tests submitted for premarket approval through the agency's review process.

    Aug 15, 2014

  • Transcriptic Aims to Make the Biology Lab Programmable

    Bio-IT World | The Menlo Park startup Transcriptic is now hiring out its robotics lab to automate life science tasks — but its real innovation is a programming interface that lets users customize their lab procedures down to the smallest pipetting step.

    Aug 13, 2014

  • Modular Brain Model Joins Neurons in Three Dimensions

    New York Times | Scientists at Tufts University have produced a three-dimensional model of the brain in which rat neurons can be grown for months at a time in the lab.

    Aug 12, 2014

  • Pistoia Alliance Forms Expert Group on Controlled Substance Legislation

    Bio-IT World News Brief | The Pistoia Alliance, an industry group that addresses non-competitive problems shared by stakeholders in drug development, today announced the launch of an expert community to streamline how pharma companies and their partners track the laws governing the use and distribution of chemical substances worldwide.

    Aug 11, 2014

  • Pharma Investors Express Support for Biosimilars

    Pharmalot | A large investor group has been circulating a document asking pharmaceutical companies to pledge certain measures to foster the takeup of biosimilars in the U.S., including the acknowledgement of safety data from Europe.

    Aug 11, 2014

  • DNAnexus, AllSeq Share HiSeq X Ten Data

    Bio-IT World News Brief | The Garvan Institute, one of the earliest users of the "$1000 genome" HiSeq X Ten platform, has provided two whole genome datasets for public analysis, through a partnership with DNAnexus and AllSeq.

    Aug 8, 2014

  • Data Virtualization Powers Next Generation Sample Intelligence

    Bio-IT World Contributed Commentary | With more than one billion samples stored in biobanks around the world, research advancements, genomics and biomarker development, and reduced research budgets are all driving the need for unified sample intelligence.

    Aug 8, 2014

  • The Genomics of Infectious Diseases

    Bio-IT World | The Genome Center for Infectious Diseases (GCID) at the University of Maryland in Baltimore is dedicated to bringing new genomics technologies to bear on the bacteria, fungi, and parasites that cause disease in humans and livestock. One of the first targets: artemesinin-resistant Plasmodium falciparum, the parasite that causes the most deadly type of malaria

    Aug 7, 2014

  • Tumor Cells Shedding their DNA Fingerprints

    Nature News | Circulating tumor DNA--released into the blood when a tumor cell dies--has the potential to tell us far more about the various mutations in cancers than just tissue biopsies.

    Aug 5, 2014

  • NIH Announces Last Round of Advanced DNA Sequencing Grants

    Bio-IT World News Brief | A new four-year program of grants to organizations developing DNA sequencing technologies, totaling $14.5 million, will bring to a close the Advanced DNA Sequencing Technology initiative that has been funded by the National Human Genome Research Institute for over a decade.

    Aug 5, 2014