A computational biologist's personal views on new technologies & publications on genomics & proteomics and their impact on drug discovery
Thursday, March 28, 2024
Post-AGBT: VizGen & Scale Biosciences Partner
It's been just a few weeks since I sat poolside at AGBT with VizGen CEO Terry Lo and Scale Biosciences CEO Giovanna Prout to discuss the two companies' new partnership. Well, that would have been accurate about a month ago; getting the last AGBT threads together has been buried under post-AGBT day work, some family business, another vacation - and let's be serious, mega-scale procrastination and writer's block (and that's just a euphemism here for more procrastination). But that shouldn't detract from what these two RNA (and more!) profiling companies are trying to build together. Plus this is my last "Post-AGBT" tag for the year; now I can move on to "inspired by AGBT" that is a bit less tied to the meeting (and less obviously overdue)
Monday, March 11, 2024
BioNano In Peril Again
While I still have a pair of pre-AGBT and AGBT interviews to write up - plus a long list of post ideas inspired by AGBT - breaking news about BioNano Genomics takes precedence. The company has announced a major restructuring, with about 30% of its employees being laid off. I've been laid off twice and it's never enjoyable, so I hope what I write here is appropriately sensitive - but won't be surprised if I still commit a faux pas. Even with the restructuring, one analyst who likes BioNano estimated they will have about three quarters of cash - this is indeed a perilous time.