This Week's Top Stories
Computational biology has taken another big leap. The J. Craig Venter Institute and Stanford University have pieced together the first software model of an entire organism, using massive amounts of data and computing power to simulate life processes of the tiny being. And the group foresees the construction of digital models of more complex organisms as technology and computing infrastructure allow.
With detailed computer models of creatures, scientists have the chance to view cellular and molecular functions unlike what can be seen under a microscope or other experiments involving the real thing, according to researchers. "Comprehensive computer models of entire cells have the potential to advance our understanding of cellular function and, ultimately, to inform new approaches for the diagnosis and treatment of disease," James Anderson, director of the NIH Division of Program Coordination, Planning and Strategic Initiatives, said in a statement.
Leave it to J. Craig Venter, the genomics and synthetic biology pioneer, to find ways to pull off huge feats in life sciences. His group and Stanford researchers decided to start small with their first computer model organism, which is a sexually transmitted parasite that hangs out around the genitals and in the respiratory system. The major undertaking was detailed in the journal Cell. Yet the computer-simulated version of the 525-gene creature--called Mycoplasma genitalium--runs on 128 computers, The New York Times reported, and larger and more complex organisms would gobble up many times more computing power.
The complete organism model follows many previous computer-simulated models of individual processes such as metabolism in living organisms, including humans. A great thing about the complete organism models is the ability to look at how many genes and processes in living things interact, as many researchers are warming up to the idea that integrating massive amounts and different types of biological could yield breakthroughs in treating complicated illnesses such as Alzheimer's and cancer.
"You read in the paper just about every week, 'Cancer gene discovered' or 'Alzheimer gene discovered,'" said the leader of the new research, Markus W. Covert, an assistant professor of bioengineering at Stanford, as quoted by the Times. "A lot of the public wonders, 'Why haven't we cured all these things?' The answer, of course, is that cancer is not a one-gene problem; it's a many-thousands-of-factors problem."
- here's the release
- see the item from Cell
- and the NYT's piece
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Read more about: Stanford University
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An updated set of web-based analysis tools rapidly finds drugs with the potential to combat certain cancers, matching the drugs with tumors based on vast amounts of genetic information about the cancers and data on thousands of tested compounds. The NIH's National Cancer Institute developed the software called CellMiner for use with its extensive collection of cancer cell samples, but researchers anywhere can use the tools for free as they drill into existing and new datasets to identify anti-cancer drugs.
If the nirvana of personalized medicine is to match patients with the right drugs based on the specific genetic traits of their disease, the NCI has advanced some technology in CellMiner to help realize that ideal in oncology.
The software takes advantage of the way new drugs are developed to target specific genes rather than entire organs where cancers crop up, enabling researchers to find uses of drugs in whichever tumor type the misfit genes appear. For instance, researchers used CellMiner to uncover that an experimental drug called selumetinib, which has been trialed in patients with colon cancer, might also work as an attack against deadly skin cancer or melanoma. The findings were published in the journal Cancer Research.
The NCI's tools have been developed with information overload in mind. Drug researchers have access to many massive datasets on cancer genomes and other molecular information to aid their hunt for new treatments, yet some of the existing analysis software might require scads of bioinformatics specialists to correlate target gene data with information on compounds. And the NCI says that CellMiner is easier to use than those previous tools. The ease of use alone could speed up data-driven discovery of potential cancer drugs.
"Previously you would have to hire a bioinformatics team to sort through all of the data, but these tools put the entire database at the fingertips of any researcher," the NCI's Dr. Yves Pommier said in a statement. "These tools allow researchers to analyze drug responses as well as make comparisons from drug to drug and gene to gene."
- here's the release
- see the abstract
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Read more about: CellMiner, selumetinib
 Sermo, the high-profile provider of the largest doctors-only social network in the U.S., is now in the hands of a healthcare market research firm. WorldOne bought Sermo for an undisclosed sum last week, making it murky how VCs that pumped more than $40 million into Sermo faired.
As WorldOne points out, Sermo built up a membership of 130,000 docs and a client list of 8 of the 10 largest drugmakers. Yet Sermo's pursuit to build value from the online interactions of physicians wasn't without challenges. Membership growth for the 6-year-old social network was slower in recent years than the heady early years when founder and former CEO Dr. Daniel Palestrant gained wide media attention for his platform for uniting doctors online.
Yet the size of Sermo's membership never seemed to be an issue. It turns out that the majority of U.S. doctors don't socialize with each other online as easily as people in other professions. Forbes contributor Jim Golden covered the Sermo buyout in a piece called "Physicians Aren't Social," noting that Sermo made money from paid content and other services for members with dollars from life sciences companies. He points out that a paper in JAMA about physician behavior found that docs operate mostly in their practices and it's tricky to measure how they interact in our complex healthcare system.
Pharma companies have been boosting their budgets for digital promotions, as both patients and doctors go online for health information. Yet social networking sites might only offer a fraction of information on the influence of docs. As Golden writes, entrepreneurs are now looking at large amounts data from sources such as insurance claims data, electronic health records and referral info to find out where clout resides in physician communities.
WorldOne sees an opportunity to use Sermo's network to expand its digital group launched last year that taps emerging technologies to collect insights from healthcare pros.
"Sermo fits in perfectly with our strategy to extend our digital footprint across healthcare market research and enhance our growing portfolio of innovative engagement solutions," said Peter Kirk, CEO of WorldOne, in a statement. "Sermo has proven that sustaining an active, engaged community can result in higher interest in and response to market research as well as new promotional opportunities."
- here's the WorldOne release
- see the Forbes' commentary
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Read more about: social media
Boehringer Ingelheim has struck a deal which positions the German drugmaker to participate in digital diabetes care. The pact between Boehringer and digital health outfit Healthrageous, announced last week, involves a study of Type 2 diabetics, who are expected to receive a combination of digital coaching, wireless glucose monitoring and other tools to manage their disease.
Boehringer, which developed the diabetes drugs Tradjenta and Trajenta, is looking "beyond the pill" at a range of technologies to support its business, the company's Bert Tjeenk-Willink told PMLive. Mobile tech and social media play larger roles than ever in healthcare, and the collaboration with Healthrageous in the Boston area will provide Boehringer with some insights into how diabetics deal with their condition.
Diabetes affects more than 20 million Americans, most of which have Type 2 disease, making it a major focus of drug sales and research. Even with existing treatments such as insulin, many diabetics struggle to control their blood sugar levels and face numerous complications such as heart problems, kidney failure and other organ damage. According to Healthrageous, a spinoff of Harvard-affiliated hospitals, the Boehringer-supported study aims to measure how its digital interventions help patients take their meds as prescribed and make lifestyle adjustments to keep their disease in check.
The web and smartphones comprise the main routes to deliver tools in the study, including social media support. Such technologies have become increasingly useful to drugmakers. Recently, Pfizer ($PFE) piloted a virtual clinical trial that issued smartphones to patients to report their health. Eli Lilly ($LLY), Pfizer, and others have also released mobile apps for doctors and patients with an eye toward supporting their efforts to develop or market pharmaceuticals.
- here's the release
- see PMLive's article
- get more from mobihealthnews
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Read more about: Healthrageous, diabetes
Big Pharma isn't the only crowd swearing off megamergers lately. In his business of providing software to pharma's clinical trials, Medidata ($MDSO) CEO Tarek Sherif wants his company to avoid major buyouts in favor of small purchases and organic tech development, he told Outsourcing-Pharma.
This shouldn't be a surprise to the eClinical crowd. New York-based Medidata has publicly stated that it's been able to swoop in and gain customers from rival Oracle ($ORCL), which has been dealing with overlap and support matters in its portfolio of clinical trials software products from the $685 million buyout of competitor Phase Forward, the article says. (Apparently a $685 million deal is a megamerger in the eClinical game, unlike the tens of billions it takes to achieve that status in pharma.)
In major mergers, the key is to make the right match. Last year, Medidata bought Clinical Force for that company's clinical trial management system (CTMS) product, and recently touted the fact that the number of active studies operating on the CTMS from Clinical Force has grown 85% since the July 2011 acquisition. Meantime, the company has been pumping millions of dollars annually into development of its next set of software tools to streamline clinical trials. And analysts seem to eat up the strategy at Medidata.
"Our discussions indicate that Medidata is having increasing levels of success in securing multi-product and enterprise-level awards," said Raymond James analyst Sandy Draper, as quoted by Outsourcing-Pharma.
- check out the Outsourcing-Pharma article
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Read more about: Oracle, Medidata
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Data rules in biotech, and such has been the case for decades. Yet a series of breakthroughs in 
