Bio Saga Blog - A Chronicle of Life Sciences & Informatics

Shares of Gen-Probe jumped 14 percent today after  Bloomberg  reported that the firm has hired Morgan Stanley to seek a buyer. Among the possible bidders listed in the article are Novartis, Thermo-Fisher Scientific, Danaher, and Life Technologies. Novartis already sells Gen-Probe's Tigris blood-screening instrument to blood banks, and it has  helped fund development  of Gen-Probe's new automated molecular testing platform, called Panther. The firms have collaborated since 1998 on nucleic acid tests and instruments for the blood screening market. According to Mizuho analyst Peter Lawson, around $12 billion has been spent on diagnostics-focused merger and acquisition activity over the past year. He noted that typical molecular and proprietary-focused acquisition valuations fall into the 3x-6x price/sales range. Two months ago, Gen-Probe  reported full-year 2010 revenues  of $543.3 million. At that time, it also reported a 2 percent decrease in fourt...

Cognizant, a leading provider of consulting, technology, and business process outsourcing services, and Eagle Genomics Ltd., a bioinformatics software company specializing in genomic data management and integration, has announced they are working with the Pistoia Alliance, Inc., a nonprofit, precompetitive alliance of life science companies and vendors, as one of the groups engaged to develop a conceptual cloud-based platform to facilitate access to public and proprietary sources of gene sequence data. The Pistoia Alliance’s sequence services working group aims to define and document an externally hosted service for securely storing and mining both proprietary derived gene/sequence information and public domain gene databases. This conceptual platform developed by Cognizant and Eagle Genomics, as part of this piloting stage, will enable working group companies to securely share their bioinformatics resources among simultaneous, registered users in a secure, encrypted environment, while...

Oseltamivir (Tamiflu) is currently the frontline antiviral drug employed to fight the flu virus in infected individuals by inhibiting neuraminidase, a flu protein responsible for the release of newly synthesized virions. However, oseltamivir resistance has become a critical problem due to rapid mutation of the flu virus. Unfortunately, how mutations actually confer drug resistance is not well understood. In this study, we employ molecular dynamics (MD) and steered molecular dynamics (SMD) simulations, as well as graphics processing unit (GPU)-accelerated electrostatic mapping, to uncover the mechanism behind point mutation induced oseltamivir-resistance in both H5N1 “avian” and H1N1pdm “swine” flu N1-subtype neuraminidases. The simulations reveal an electrostatic binding funnel that plays a key role in directing oseltamivir into and out of its binding site on N1 neuraminidase. The binding pathway for oseltamivir suggests how mutations disrupt drug binding and how new drugs may circumve...

Avesthagen launches commercial Whole Genome Scanning Bringing Personalized Genomics to your doorstep. Avesthagen will use Affymetrix technology to decipher the association between single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs)/ mutation and predisposition to the disease. The DNA chip used by Avesthagen for whole genome scanning features more than 1.8 million markers of genetic variation that include SNPs as well as probes for copy number variation (CNV). A whole genome scan of an individual would provide information to understand his/her own genetic make-up that would lead to an increased awareness about the predisposition to a disease(s). The diseases, which are offered by Avesthagen, include major types of cancer, cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, schizophrenia, Alzheimer’s, asthma, anemia, arthritis and others. The technology platform at Avesthagen is able to interrogate the genetic markers (SNPs and CNVs) across an individual’s genome...