Bio Saga Blog - A Chronicle of Life Sciences & Informatics

Roche said today that it will acquire Genia Technologies for $125 million in cash and up to $225 million in additional payments tied to milestones. Once the deal closes, Genia will be integrated into the Roche Sequencing Unit. Genia, based in Mountain View, Calif., has been developing a single-molecule sequencing-by-synthesis technology that uses nanopore-based electrical detection and employs a semiconductor integrated circuit. Last fall, Genia and its academic collaborators at Columbia University, Harvard University, and the National Institute of Standards and Technology published proof of concept for their NanoTag sequencing technology. According to Roche, Genia's technology "is expected to reduce the price of sequencing while increasing speed and sensitivity." Roche has also been working with Pacific Biosciences on developing a sequencing system and assays for clinical diagnostics using PacBio's single-molecule real-time sequencing technology. Last fall,...

Two-day national-level workshop on Protein Structural Analysis & Homology Modelling DATES: October 23-24, 2010 LOCALE: Department of Biotechnology and Bioinformatics,  Padmashree Dr. D. Y. Patil University Sector 15, CBD,  Belapur, Navi Mumbai-400614, India Janu Ganak and the Bioinformatics Community of the Department of Biotechnology and Bioinformatics, Padmashree Dr. D Y Patil  University, are pleased to inform you that a two day workshop on "PROTEIN STRUCTURAL ANALYSIS AND HOMOLOGY  MODELLING" is being organized.  This workshop is the second of a series of workshops that are aimed at  giving complete  hands-on experience in various tools and techniques  used  in the fields of life science and bioinformatics. This workshop is aimed at giving practical experience on the basic methods of visualization, analysis and modeling of protein structures using bioinformatics tools.  Both under-graduate...

Agilent Technologies signs a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Government of Malaysia through the Malaysian Institute of Pharmaceuticals and Nutraceuticals (IPHARM), an agency under the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation (MOSTI), to promote and develop cooperation in biotechnology.  Under the terms of the MoU, the strategic alliance will focus on the establishment of the IPHARM-Agilent Global Reference Research Lab and the development of human capital in the emerging field of biotechnology.  The lab will develop global halal testing standards in pharmaceuticals and nutraceuticals. It also will provide access to state-of-the-art analytical tools and expertise to develop the local industry and small and medium enterprise (SME) ecosystem in their commercialisation efforts.  IPHARM brings its domain expertise in bioactive compounds research and analysis to the partnership while leveraging Malaysia's inherited strength in biodiversity and its aspirat...

More good news for Bio, more so for Bioinfo & CompBio while the end of Jyly say House Passes Proposed 3 Percent NIH Funding Increase now NIH is really promoting Bio Science research to bring in a economic turn. The best of times is now ! A National Institutes of Health funding program will support exploratory research and development projects in informatics and computational biology that explore a range of areas, including genomics , medical genetics, proteomics , biomedical imaging, and a wide variety of other approaches. Funded through the National Cancer Institute, the National Human Genome Research Institute, the other centers across NIH, the " Exploratory Innovations in Biomedical Computational Science and Technology " program will be coordinated by the NIH Biomedical Information Science and Technology Initiative committee. Under the program, NIH will grant up to $275,000 over two years to academic institutes, small businesses, non-profits, state governments, ...

A leading provider of software for pharmaceutical discovery and development, today announced that the pharmacokinetics , dynamics, and metabolism science board at a top three pharmaceutical company named its software an "application of choice." As pharmaceutical companies face a significant number of patent expirations in the near future, there is a need to become more aggressive in research and development to fill the pipeline, sometimes with reduced R&D staff. Productivity tools in the field of pharmacokinectics , ADMET , chemical data visualization and analysis , etc. that leverage the expertise of the industry's scientific teams. It is believed that the difficulties facing some parts of the pharmaceutical industry will result in greater use of such tools as managers realize that the savings in time and money that can be achieved through their application vastly exceeds the cost of obtaining and learning to use them.