finchtalk

The biotechnology (biotech) industry is incredibly diverse. Recently, I wrote about the size of the biotech industry, which is, of course, related to how biotechnology is defined. As a strict definition, biotechnology is the use of biology to turn raw materials into useful products. However, the…

A simple web search says biotech is really big. One estimate indicates that the industry will have $400 billion in sales in 2017 with growth to over $775 billion by 2024 [1]. Another report suggests there are over 77,000 employers [2]. That’s big, but is it real, and what you can do with this…

It's time for the annual blog about the annual Nucleic Acids Research (NAR) database issue. This is the 24th database issue for NAR and the seventh blog for @finchtalk. Like most years I have no idea what I'm going to write about until I start reading the new issue. Something always inspires me.…

Computers, biological data (molecular sequences, structures, and other data), websites, and databases are integral to modern research. Innovations like precision, or personalized medicine, expect a certain level of patient participation, and our future food and environmental sustainability will…

Someone missed the memo. Over the past year, news and presentations by NIH leaders like Philip Bourne have communicated that the proliferation biologically focused databases is unsustainable. However, unlike last year, where the number of databases tracked by Nucleic Acids Research (NAR) dropped by…

Something interesting happened in 2014. The total number of databases that Nucleic Acids Research (NAR) tracks dropped by three databases! What happened?  Did people quit making databases?  No.  This year, the "dead" databases (links no longer valid) outnumber the new ones. To celebrate Digital…

Scale, proportion, and quantity belong to one of the cross cutting concepts in the next generation science standards (NGSS).  According to Volume 2 of the NGSS, "in engineering, no structure could be conceived much less constructed without the engineer's precise sense of scale."  The authors go on…

Science and its interpretation is wonderful. Today I saw a post on Twitter from @LAbizar, referencing an @GEN, post that stated 8.2% of Human DNA is Functional with a link to a GEN article: "Surprise: Only 8.2% of Human DNA Is Functional." The GEN writeup cited a PLoS Genetics article, "8.2% of the…

A few weeks back, we published a review about the development and role of the human reference genome. A key point of the reference genome is that it is not a single sequence. Instead it is an assembly of consensus sequences that are designed to deal with variation in the human population and…

A key concept in science is molecular scale. DNA is a fascinating molecule in this regard. While we cannot "see" DNA molecules without the aid of advanced technology, a full length DNA molecule can be very long. In human cells, other than sperm and eggs, six billion base pairs of DNA are packaged…

Replication fork -  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telomere. Organisms with linear chromosomes have to solve the problem that DNA replication makes them shorter. This is due to the fact that DNA polymerase can only add bases to the terminal 3'-OH of a DNA chain. The DNA replication initiation…

Today (4/25) is national DNA day.  Digital World Biology™ is celebrating by sharing some of our favorite structures of DNA. We created these photos with Molecule World™ a new iPad app for viewing molecular structures. As we are taught in school, the double stranded DNA molecule is a right-handed…

In our series on why $1000 genomes cost $2000, I raised the issue that the $1000 genome is a value based on simplistic calculations that do not account for the costs of confirming the results. Next, I discussed how errors are a natural occurrence of the many processing steps required to sequence…

Previously, I introduced the idea that the $1000 genome has not been achieved because it is defined in simplistic terms that ignore many aspects of data completeness and verification. In that analysis, I cited a recent perspective by Robasky, Lewis, and Church [1] to present concepts related to the…

Getting an accurate genome sequence requires that you collect the data at least twice argue Robasky, Lewis, and Church in their recent opinion piece in Nat. Rev. Genetics [1]. The DNA sequencing world kicked off 2014 with an audacious start. Andrew Pollack ran an article in the New York Times…