Bio Saga Blog - A Chronicle of Life Sciences & Informatics

Pfizer’s primary care business unit has dropped two Phase III candidates, further reducing the drug giant’s product pipeline and raising more questions about its R&D decisions. The firm said that that development of the compounds in question, esreboxetine for fibromyalgia and PD332334 for generalised anxiety disorder (GAD), had been abandoned after a review of existing clinical data. Company spokeswoman Kristen Neese told in-PharmaTechnologist that the latest decision reflects both current market dynamics and the expectation that the dropped candidates would not have offered significant medical benefits over available products. Neese went on to say that drugs currently in development for other indications would provide a better return for Pfizer’s clinical investment and added that the firm is “ still on track to have between 24 and 29 candidates in Phase III development by the end of 200...

If you offer something of value to people for free while someone else charges a hefty sum of money for the same type of product, one would logically assume that most people would choose the free option. According to new research in the February 20 edition of the journal Science , if the product in question is access to scholarly papers and research, that logic might just be wrong. These findings provide new insight into the nature of scholarly discourse and the future of the open source publication movement. To test this theory, James A. Evans, an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Chicago, and Jacob Reimer, a student of neurobiology also at the University of Chicago, analyzed millions of articles available online, including those from open source publications and those that required payment to access. The results were surprising. On average, when a given publication was made available online after being in print for a year, being published in an open source format ...

XTractor Knowledgebase XTractor is the first of its kind web 2.0 application which enables researchers to analyze the most current complex biological and chemical relationships published in PUBMED everyday. XTractor Knowledgebase now contains more than 100000 relationships on interactions, regulations and modulations between proteins, drugs, processes and disease. It is the only knowledgebase that updates its data content on a daily basis. The Approach: The Data behind XTractor comes from manual annotation, which is carried out by qualified scientists at Molecular Connections, INDIA ( www.molecularconnections.com ). Our scientists regularly handpick and annotate the most relevant sentences to public ontologies. Each of the data points is quality checked to ensure the highest levels of data accuracy. The extracted facts are also referenced back to the PubMed abstract(s).The sentences in XTractor are also manually c...

The Journal of Visualized Experiments (JoVE) is a new way to publish original methods in the areas of biological and biomedical science in a video format. The focus is on making demonstration of techniques and experimental approaches clear and easy to follow. Articles published in JoVE are listed in Pubmed and MEDLINE so you can still get your paper cited by other authors. All submissions go through peer review and editorial review and the editorial board consists of 22 distinguished professors from Harvard, Princeton, NIH and other leading institutions in the US, Europe and Japan. Do you want to know more? Be part of XTractor community. XTractor the first of its kind - Literature alert service , provides manually curated & annotated sentences for the Keywords of your choice XTractor maps, extracted entities (genes, processes, drugs, diseases etc) to multiple ontologies Enables customized report generation. With XTractor the sentences are categorized into biologically signi...

Darwin 2009 commemorations Darwin Day 12 February 2009. The year 2009 is the 150th anniversary of the publication of On the Origin of Species (24 November 1859) and the 200th anniversary of Darwin's birth (12 February 1809). This page on Darwin Online aims to list the associated worldwide events and publications. Submissions for this list should be emailed to Dr John van Wyhe jmv21@cam.ac.uk in the form: 'day month year title. Sponsor/venue. Link.' Items are loosely grouped into 'Events', 'Publications' and 'Films and documentaries'. Although this list is currently very far from comprehensive, it is probably the largest list of worldwide Darwin events in 2009. Many more such events lots of excitement this week on blogs all around and other fans of reality. Darwin Day in the Blogosphere. Be part of XTractor community. XTractor the first of its kind - Literature alert service , provides manually curated & annotated se...

The ambitious traditional knowledge digital library (TKDL), successfully completed by CSIR (under VK Gupta's stewardship) is now accessible to the EPO, thanks to an agreement signed recently between the Indian government and the EPO. Radhika Pandeiya and Jacob Koshy of The Mint broke this story (online) today, including myriad comments on what this means for India in terms of the much bandied about TK misappropriation debates (turmeric patenting etc). And what ought to the future policy direction in relation to this database and its potential access to non governmental entities.Here are some excerpts from their story titled "Ginger can’t be patented in Europe now" "India’s traditional knowledge—such as medicinal properties of neem and turmeric—could now become more difficult to patent for drug makers in Europe. The European Patent Office, or EPO, will consult an Indian database that lists traditionally known drug formulations before granting patent rights. The Counci...

XTractor now has a ready reckoner on Drugs , Diseases , Proteins & Processes along with sample manually annotated sentences form PubMed available on each of those Drugs , Diseases , Proteins & Processes listed there. This is really going to be handy for any bench scientist. Be part of XTractor community. XTractor the first of its kind - Literature alert service , provides manually curated & annotated sentences for the Keywords of your choice XTractor maps, extracted entities (genes, processes, drugs, diseases etc) to multiple ontologies Enables customized report generation. With XTractor the sentences are categorized into biologically significant relationships The categorized sentences could then be tagged and shared across multiple users Provides users with the ability to create his own database for a set of Key terms Users could change the Keywords of preference from time to time, with changing research needs XTractor thus proves to be a platform for gett...

AstraZeneca is searching for 10 qualified statisticians with experience in delivering statistical impact - one or two of these positions will be located in Lund, SE. A strong technical capability combined with well-developed communication, consultancy and influencing skills are essential pre-requisites to successfully perform these roles. Application deadline: February 12, 2009. Be part of XTractor community. XTractor the first of its kind - Literature alert service , provides manually curated & annotated sentences for the Keywords of your choice XTractor maps, extracted entities (genes, processes, drugs, diseases etc) to multiple ontologies Enables customized report generation. With XTractor the sentences are categorized into biologically significant relationships The categorized sentences could then be tagged and shared across multiple users Provides users with the ability to create his own database for a set of Key terms Users could change the Keywords of preference fr...

Designation: Scientist (Bioinformatics) Qualifications: M.Sc/ PhD Experience: M.Sc 3+ years / PhD 1+ years The role offers an exciting opportunity to work alongside molecular biologists and experimental scientists on cutting edge platform technologies and customer projects. The primary role of the Scientist will be to assist in the analysis of gene expression data & genomics. Extensive knowledge of genomics and statistical analysis methods, as well as a solid foundation in biology, are therefore necessary. The role requires actively help, capture and refine requirements pertaining to specific customer's scientific use cases. Successful candidate will also be given freedom and encouragement to publish in peer-reviewed scientific journals, to further develop statistical techniques for data analysis, lead in-house product development programs and propose new initiatives. Requirements: Candidates will have strong knowledge using—and coding functionality that interacts with—publ...

British drugs company GlaxoSmithKline is set to announce about 6,000 job losses when it posts results on Thursday, the 'Sunday Telegraph' newspaper said. The cuts by Glaxo, the world's second largest drugs company after U.S. group Pfizer, are part of Chief Executive Andrew Witty's strategy to meet the challenges facing the industry, including increased competition from generic drug makers, the British newspaper said. The company, which employs about 100,000 people including 18,000 in the UK, has failed to get as many new drugs to market as investors hoped when it was created via a merger eight years ago. Witty has tried to shift Glaxo's center of gravity away from blockbuster prescription drugs, like top-seller Advair for asthma, and toward non-prescription consumer healthcare products. A Glaxo spokesman said the company has a restructuring program but he declined to comment on specific job cuts. Rival AstraZeneca announced 6,000 job losses on Thursday after posting...