Sponsored by DNASTAR, this webinar will feature experts sharing the latest ideas and trends in de novo complex genome assembly, including a discussion on the use of open-source and commerical software packages.
February 19-20, 2012, San Francisco: This symposium precedes the start of the Molecular Med Tri-Conference and will cover real-world use cases across drug discovery & design, research & collaboration, molecular modeling, NGS, proteomics, and bioinformatics. The focus will be on drivers of cloud computing in life sciences - speed, costs, governance, capacity, service levels, data location, and architecture.
Five years from now, will sequencing centers have enough capacity to meet global demand?
January 10, 2012
Kevin Davies :Researchers at Children’s Hospital in Boston have launched the CLARITY Challenge - a $25,000 competition intended to set and advance standards for clinical genomic analysis and interpretation.
CLARITY stands for Children’s Leadership Award for the Reliable Interpretation and appropriate Transmission of Your genomic information. While the much publicized Archon X PRIZE presented by Medco will offer $10 million in prize money for essentially reaching the $1,000 genome early next year, the CLARITY contest focuses squarely on best practices in clinical genome interpretation and data delivery. The winning team will receive a $25,000 prize underwritten by Children's Hospital
The competition is open to academic and commercial researchers worldwide, with applications due no later than March 1, 2012. For logistical reasons, a maximum of 20 teams will be selected to participate in the competition. The winner of the competition, chosen by a panel of seven judges, will be announced in October 2012.
Industry partners include Life Technologies, which raised the prospect of a $1,000 genome in 2013 with the unveiling of its Ion Proton sequencer last week, and Complete Genomics.
“With the swift decline in the cost of sequencing, the time is rapidly approaching when genomic information will leap from the research bench to the doctor’s office and become a part of everyday care,” said Isaac Kohane, director of Children’s Hospital Boston’s informatics program and one of three competition co-organizers.
Coming Together
Kohane told Bio-IT World that the idea for launching the contest emerged from the success his group enjoyed in running challenges for i2b2 (informatics for integrating biology & the bedside), focused on making data widely available. “The competitive aspect was nice, adds some spice, but [more importantly] it catalyzes teams coming together. I think that there’s a certain social process around these competitions, creating teams for a purpose that otherwise didn’t exist.”
In addition to helping the patients and their families, Kohane hopes to identify and bring together the best elements of competing pipelines, as he expects that there will be stronger and weaker components for each pipeline. “There’ll be one overall winner, but separate and transparent grading of different components of the pipelines.”