Bio Saga Blog - A Chronicle of Life Sciences & Informatics

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The Centre for Applied Genomics (TCAG) at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto has reeled in C$5.1 million (US$5 million) from the Ontario Genomics Institute to support its operations, OGI said today. TCAG provides a range of core services including gene and genome sequencing; microarrays and genotyping; cytogenomics and biobanking; and statistical and informational services. The two years of funding was awarded under the Genome Canada Science and Technology Innovation Centre Competition. TCAG was founded in 1998 and it provides research support to labs involved in a wide array of genomic disciplines including human health, agriculture, and plant and animal studies.

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PerkinElmer Inc. has entered into a new supply agreement with Switzerland’s Roche for distribution of the NimbleGen CGX microarray workflow the two developed together. Starting in January of 2012, Waltham-based PerkinElmer will assume responsibility from Roche for sales, service and support of the CGX array workflow for most countries outside of the U.S., according to a release. Roche will still sell the cytogenetic testing system in the U.S. and other select markets. The two companies started working together on a cytogenetics array workflow in 2009. The NimbleGen CGX array workflow uses microarray technologies developed by Roche with the cytogenetic-focused array design and analysis software from Signature Genomics, which was acquired by PerkinElmer  in May of 2010. So far this year, PerkinElmer has been on an acquisition tear, acquiring at least four companies since the spring. In June, the company  bought London-based Dexela Limited , a provider of X-ray detection t...

GeneGo today said that Agilent's GeneSpring bioinformatics solution has been integrated with GeneGo's MetaCore. The collaboration was announced in connection with the newest version of Agilent's GeneSpring. Agilent said today introduced GeneSpring GX 11.5, which can interpret microarray, proteomics, and metabolomics experiments together for the first time. The newest version includes a direct connection to the MetaCore pathway analysis engine, enabling users to seamlessly upload expression data analyzed in GeneSpring, said GeneGo. "MetaCore can concurrently visualize multiple types of data and will be able to take advantage of this new functionality in GeneSpring which will be very helpful to our joint customers," Julie Bryant, VP of business development for St. Joseph, Mich.-based GeneGo, said in a statement.

Computercraft seeks a highly motivated Molecular Biologist to join the Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) curation team onsite at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda, MD. GEO is the largest fully public repository for functional genomic data, primarily microarray and next-generation sequence datasets. More information on GEO can be found on the web site http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/geo . RESPONSIBILITIES: We are currently looking for someone with a background in molecular biology , genomics, or biomedicine that is capable of working with large datasets. This person will be a member of the GEO curation team, helping to review and process incoming data submissions. The successful candidate will work at NIH's National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) in the National Library of Medicine (NLM). The successful candidate will perform the following tasks: - Review and evaluate data submissions for structural integrity and content. - Communicate extensively with rese...

PREMAS Biotech is a cGMP compliant Contract Research And Manufacturing Services (CRAMS) organization located in IMT-Manesar, Gurgaon near New Delhi, India. It is formed on the strong foundation of scientific expertise and technology development that is dedicated to developing and providing integrated research solutions in the area of life science research. Bioinformatics: MSc or MS or M.Tech in Life Sciences with specialisation in Bioinformatics with 0-5 years experience in a similar position. Proficiency in computer languages and bioinformatic applications is necessary. Experience in microarray data analysis is desirable. Please send your resume / response by e mail to: praveen.gupta@premasbiotech.com many other positions of Life sciences are available at the organisations. Follow the link for more details on them http://www.premasbiotech.com/opportunities.aspx courtesy naturejobs

Roche Diagnostics said today that it has struck a deal with Salt Lake City-based BioMicro Systems to buy all of the products associated with the Roche NimbleGen microarray workflow. These assets include instruments that are key to the Roche NimbleGen microarray workflow, such as the 4-and-12-bay NimbleGen Hybridization Systems. Roche said that it will transfer the manufacturing capabilities associated with these products to its own in-house facility. "Acquiring these assets will allow Roche complete control over the production, support, and service of these products to ensure continued timely distribution, full support, and the high level of service our customers have grown to expect from Roche," Roche NimbleGen VP of Marketing Andreas Görtz said in a statement. NimbleGen originally partnered with BioMicro for custom hybridization for its chips in 2007, before it was acquired by Roche later that year. Financial terms of the agreement were not released.

Sciclips has recently launched a unique database of bioinformatics tools and software for reserchers. This database contains links to more than 2000 web-based bioinformatics and software tools for DNA, RNA, proteins, genomics, proteomics, drug discovery research and many more. This database is the largest online collection for bioinformatics tools and software that is freely available to the researchers. This one-stop extensive bioinformatics database will help researchers in retrieving, analysing the most relevant biological data and extracting information from them efficiently for genomics, proteomics and drug discovery and other areas of research. Bioinformatics Tools and Database Protocols

The National Institutes of Health has awarded 970 stimulus grants worth more than $625 million — around 14 percent of total NIH stimulus grant funding to date — to projects that fall within the broad family of 'omics disciplines, according to a preliminary analysis of the NIH funding database conducted by GenomeWeb Daily News . As of Sept. 30, the close of the fiscal year, the National Institutes of Health had awarded a total of $5 billion in stimulus funding — nearly half of the $10 billion appropriation that NIH will disburse over two years under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 . The $5 billion figure includes both grants and contracts, however. For grants alone, NIH had awarded approximately $4.4 billion via 12,789 ARRA grants as of Oct. 7, according to the database. The 970 grants awarded to 'omics projects comprise 7.5 percent of the stimulus grants awarded so far, but the total funding awarded to these projects makes up 14 percent of NIH ARRA grant ...

Agilent Technologies has inked a definitive agreement to acquire Varian for $52 per share, or a total of around $1.5 billion. The acquisition is Agilent's largest in the life sciences space and continues a strategy by the firm to focus on that segment and its "transformation into a leading bio-analytical measurement company. The deal will expand Agilent's presence in the life sciences research and applied markets, such as the environment and energy. Agilent said that it also will expand its product portfolio into atomic and molecular spectroscopy and in other fields including nuclear magnetic resonance, imaging, and vacuum technologies. "This acquisition is a major step in Agilent's transformation into a leading bio-analytical measurement company," Agilent President and CEO Bill Sullivan said in a statement. "The combination of Varian with Agilent's bio-analytical measurement business will result in the broadest product offering in the industry....

Moxtek, a nano-photonics company, today announced that it has reached a collaboration agreement with Philips Research to develop a new wire grid microarray chip (WGM) that has been designed to offer ultra-high surface specificity and excellent suppression of background signals. The WGM is based on a wire grid pattern on a glass substrate. The WGM technology provides the potential for rapid quantitative detection with improved accuracy, of biomolecules such as proteins and nucleic acids. In addition, the technology promises to significantly simplify the work flow and improve the reproducibility for such tests by removing the washing step and performing hybridization and detection in parallel. These strengths match with the needs for advanced microarray technology in life sciences research. Rapid molecular detection for life sciences research is a fast-growing market, and could revolution...