Bio IT World, Volume 8, No.2 March - April 2009

Bio-IT World provides breaking news, analysis, and opinion on enabling technologies that drive biomedical research and drug development, with emphasis on predictive biology, drug discovery, informatics, personalized medicine, and clinical trials. Bio-IT World focuses on the technologies deployed and strategic decisions made by companies in these areas, and their impact on performance.

As the biopharma industry transforms itself from empirical trial-and-error experimentation to an industry reliant upon information, computation, and prediction of outcomes, technologies such as high-throughput genotyping, microarray analysis, and bioinformatics are providing the means of gathering, interpreting, and analyzing biological, chemical, and clinical data to further drug discovery and development. Bio-IT World covers the latest developments in these fields.


Focus areas include:

Genomic analysis: next-generation sequencing, genome-wide association mapping, and data integration

Discovery informatics: collection, analysis and workflows of compound, microarray, proteomic, imaging, and pre-clinical and clinical data

Systems biology: gene, protein, metabolite, and network/pathway information

Computational modeling: biosimulations of pathways, drug action, and clinical data

Predictiveness: in vitro assays, biomarkers, and animal models

Cheminformatics: structure-based drug design, compound characterization, ADME-Tox, and selectivity

Correlation of biological data: disease diagnosis, patient selection, and drug response

Target data: biological, pathway, interaction, patent, and family

IT infrastructure: grid computing and high-performance computing

Text mining: internal documents and published literature

Semantic web: next-generation data sharing and social networking

Clinical research: electronic data capture, patient recruitment, and adaptive trials
Pharmacogenomics: diagnostics for therapeutics, patient stratification


Cover Story
Integrating Clinical and Genomic Data
With assists from Oracle and InforSense, Dana-Farber’s John Quackenbush finds ways to mine vast patient data collections to better understand human cancer.

Up Front
"Breathtaking” Biology Shimmers on Marco Island
At AGBT, new technology heralds exciting new biology.

Merck Execs See ‘Sage’ as Key Ingredient for Disease Biology
Merck execs tout new venture as key ingredient for disease biology.

Are Patent Offices Ready for Personalized Medicine?
New science presents unique challenges to the patent system.

Inside the Box | The State of Kits
We may be ready for an open source, next generation toolkit.

Insights Outlook | Expanding Molecular Diagnostics
Molecular diagnostics has exciting opportunities.

News Briefs

Computational Biology
Keeping Science Connected the Web 2.0 Way
The rise of scientific social networking is paying dividends for users and entrepreneurs alike.

Computational Development
Chasing Cellular Systems Biology
Cellumen uses high content screening to flag tox-causing compounds.

Agile IT Strategy in Pharmaceutical R&D
Clearly communicated aims should be the goal.

IT/Workflow
Ted Slater’s Semantic Technologies
The semantic web doesn’t exist, but Pfizer’s Slater believes semantic technologies are paving the way.
Platforms for Personalized Medicine
Integrating clinical information and R&D data will ensure success.

Clinical Research
A Web MD: Paul Bleicher Reflects on Phase Forward
Bleicher talks about Phase Forward’s acquisitions, milestones, and what’s next.

MacGarvey Establishes Quanticate’s U.S. Operation
The Cambridge office expands reach of clinical trial services and products in North America.

In Every Issue
First Base | Real Time Research and the Long Tail of Disease
Jay Tenenbaum urges pharma to share resources.
BY KEVIN DAVIES

The Russell Transcript | CoSBI Models
Corrado Priami, president of CoSBI hopes to infer principles from living systems to improve computer science.
BY JOHN RUSSELL

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