“MUST READ”
DISRUPTION, REVOLUTION
SOMETHING DIFFERENT
o The fight is over CRISPR/Cas9, a
potential Nobel-winning biotech discovery, and shorthand for a new way to edit
and otherwise modify genomes. As a biologist’s research tool, it’s already
invaluable. As a medicine, it could fulfill the promise of gene therapy,
snipping out faulty genes that cause disease, perhaps replacing them with new,
improved ones.
Who
invented it and when is the subject of the fight which, like battles over other
once-in-a-generation biotechnologies such as RNA interference, monoclonal
antibodies, and polymerase chain reaction
DISRUPTION, REVOLUTION
o The BioFabricate summit in New York rearranged my thinking. BioFabricate was about the
intersection of manufacturing and biology: not just “we can make cool new
microbes,” but using biology to manufacture products for the real world.
Biological products have always seemed far off. But they’re not: the revolution
in biology is clearly here now, just unevenly distributed.
TOOLS/TECHNIQUES
o Luckily, sequencing choices abound,
but choosing the right platform can be tricky. Here, we offer a brief guide to
your next gen sequencing choices.
HEALTH/MEDECINE
o It is all in service of researchers
who work for the Broad Institute, a gleaming, lavishly endowed genetics
center a few blocks away. The sequencing center has worked on human DNA from an
international effort, the 1,000 Genomes Project, that looks at the genes of thousands
of people from around the world. It has gotten sequences of microbes, like dengue fever,
malaria and West Nile virus
COMPANIES-
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Enzymatics, a privately-held U.S. company founded in 2006, commercializes a comprehensive portfolio of reagents that are estimated to be used in more than 80% of all global NGS sequencing reactions. These enzymes are key ingredients across the workflows of all commercially available sequencing solutions.
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Biomnis, Genoma, and the Center for Human Genetics and Laboratory Diagnostics Martinsried, Enter Agreements with Illumina to Expand Access for Non-Invasive Prenatal Testing Across Europe
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Ariosa’s proprietary HarmonyTM Prenatal Test is a blood test that is performed as early as 10 weeks into pregnancy. By evaluating fetal cfDNA found in maternal blood, the test is designed to assess the risk of Down syndrome and other genetic abnormalities. Specifically, the test assesses the risk of trisomies 13, 18, and 21, which are indicative of an extra chromosome in the fetus that can lead to severe genetic conditions.
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The San Diego-based DNA sequencing technology company (NASDAQ: ILMN) plans to consolidate most of its Bay Area operations — now spread between San Francisco's Mission Bay, Redwood City, Hayward and Santa Clara — at the 19-acre site off Highway 92 near the base of the San Mateo Bridge.
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SOMETHING DIFFERENT
o how about taking a short tea break
with a quick science read? Here are a few of my favourite tea-break sites:
o mazon is a global superstore, like
Walmart. It’s also a hardware manufacturer, like Apple, and a utility, like Con
Edison, and a video distributor, like Netflix, and a book publisher, like
Random House, and a production studio, like Paramount, and a literary magazine,
like The Paris Review, and a grocery deliverer, like FreshDirect, and
someday it might be a package service, like U.P.S.
o
Scientists
at Philip Morris International are experimenting with ways to deliver nicotine
— Big Tobacco’s addictive lifeblood — that are less hazardous than cigarettes
but still pack the drug’s punch and smoking’s other pleasures. The smoking
carousels, stuffed with burning cigarettes or glowing electronic devices, are
among dozens of high-tech instruments being used.
The rush
by Philip Morris and other tobacco companies to develop new ways of selling
nicotine is occurring as more consumers are trying e-cigarettes, devices that
heat a nicotine-containing fluid to create a vapor that users inhale.
