4
Aug
2015
Molecular Information Companies, One Way or Another, Find Value in Genomics
Way back in the day, the late 1990s, companies ran around saying, ‘Holy mackerel, we’re gathering all this cool genomic information. It’s valuable. We’ll sell it and make a bundle.” Almost 20 years later, next-generation sequencers are exponentially better, faster, and cheaper. They pump out vast amounts of genomic information. There are many more companies gathering data, slicing it up... Read More
19
Jun
2015
Who’s Exploring DNA ‘Dark Matter’ for Drug Discovery?
Astrophysicists know that stars and planets, and other observable forms of matter, amount to less than 5 percent of the universe. There’s a whole lot of ‘dark matter’ that’s more mysterious, but which we know is important. The same could be said for human genomes.
14
May
2015
Baseball, Regression to the Mean, and Avoiding Potential Clinical Trial Biases
It’s baseball season. Which means it’s fantasy baseball season. Which means I have to keep reminding myself that, even though it’s already been a month and a half, that’s still a pretty short time in the long rhythm of the season and every performance has to be viewed with skepticism. Ryan Zimmerman sporting a 0.293 On Base Percentage (OBP)? He’s... Read More
29
Apr
2015
Q&A With Illumina CEO Jay Flatley on Where Genomics Is Growing
Walk into any biomedical lab these days, and chances are you’ll see Illumina’s orange logo. Many scientists, diagnostics makers, physicians, and Wall Street analysts look upon the dominant maker of DNA sequencing machines with a mix of respect, fear, and awe. Much like Intel became the company that sparked so much of the computer revolution, Illumina has risen to prominence... Read More
20
Feb
2015
Five Things to Watch at Next Week’s Big Genomics Show
This is the cold, dreary, snowy time of year when all the geeky kids in genomics flock to a remote island off the Florida Gulf Coast. The boys, and they are mostly boys, will hear a lot of marketing hype about the whiz-bang new tools being developed for biology. They’ll hear a few nitty-gritty technical talks from scientists doing exciting... Read More
13
Feb
2015
How’s It Going at the Biotech Journalism Startup? Much Better Than Expected
People want quality biotech journalism. The response from subscribers in the first two weeks of Timmerman Report has exceeded my most optimistic expectations. A half-dozen journalists covered the debut. Wade Roush at the Knight Science Journalism Fellowships at MIT and Theral Timpson at Mendelspod deserve special thanks. Readers who know what kind of beating traditional journalism has taken over the... Read More
6
Feb
2015
Q&A: Affymetrix Founder Stephen Fodor Resurfaces at Cellular Research
The guy who helped popularize the gene chip is at it again. Stephen Fodor, whose work on DNA microarrays in the 1990s enabled the large-scale analysis of gene expression–the extent to which genes are turned on or off in a sample—is imaging new ways to take samples and extract more information out of them. Last month, Fodor, 61, stepped down... Read More