Highlights
Our popular monthly Journal Club met, covering everything from seizure detection to privacy - peep the #bib-journal-club channel for info on the next one!
We have the 1st meetup of our Philadelphia chapter, inbound for the 8th!
Our job board continues to flourish with new submissions at all levels!
The 1st round of matches for the BiB Buddy Program went out - check your spam!
Our #washingtondc chapter is growing - we want more policy wonks as new ethical issues rear their heads - join the channel and invite your friends!
Not yet a member of our super awesome slack community of >6000? Join HERE 🤗
📰 Community Conversations & Shares
@Kristofer Patel is figuring out how to navigate the TCGA database as a private org.
@Tad Ogorzalek is opining on how AI fits into automation methods development…
@Vega Shah surfaced a salary information resource - find out how your $ compares
link to post - see sheet and survey link in Slack!
@Anthony Torres is seeing what engineering skills are valuable in a biotech company
link to post - please VOTE! This is a super interesting topic for many in our community.
Computer Vision Journal Club
Thank you for those that came out to our Journal Club on computer vision! We had some fascinating dialogue on patient privacy and seizure detection devices/methods! In case you missed it, you can see the Youtube recording here, and join the #bib-journal-club Slack.
Thank you Rachel Ng + Steve Cheney for getting this program moving 💪!
🗓️ Upcoming BiB Events
See our handy dandy Lu.ma event calendar here, please RSVP so folks can plan accordingly!
SF Bits in Bio Tech Showcase - April 25th, Bain Capital Ventures 301 Howard St.
Thank you for organizing Beko Jang + Shantenu Agarwal
SF Data Driven Biotech Networking Event - 140 Geary St. 10th floor
Thank you for organizing Ilya Captain + Kyle Duckworth
Philadelphia Bits in Bio Happy Hour - May 8, 3675 Market St Suite 100
Thank you for organizing Zeal Jinwala + AJ Adejare
Bay Area Bits in Bio + 50Y Happy Hour @SynBioBeta - May 8, TBD - San Jose
Thank you for organizing Shantenu Agarwal
👀 In Case You Missed it..
Researchers/’Borderlands turn microbial phylogenic informatics into a video game:
You read that correctly. A collaboration between several academic research centers and the Gearbox Gaming company, the developers of the wildly succesfull Borderlands post--apocalyptic RPG game for PC, have created a generally accessibly platform for citizen scientists with no technical background to make meaningful contributions. Embedded in the original game itself, over 4 million players have solved more than 135 million science puzzles, a task unsolvable by a single individual.
Link to publication PDF in #random channel
Pacific Bioscience’s financial health:
PacBio, used to be one of the two leaders in the field of long read sequencing, with Oxford Nanopore (ONT), being used in the ENCODE4 project as well as pulling collaborations with Google for its sequencing technologies.
Its future however looks pretty dim, as the stock has gone down close to 60% last week, meaning it went down 85% since last year ! One of the possible reason is that the technology is really DNA specific and cannot be customized to handle RNA, epigenetic modifications, or proteins, thus having ONT steal its lunch.
23andme going private ?
While PacBio’s stock crash seems dramatic, 23andme said “hold my beer” and dropped by 96% since its IPO. The CEO, Anne Wojcicki, who’s holding almost half of the voting power is attempting to take the company private. This is interesting because they recently announced the start of a clinical program in order to leverage their treasure trove of data.
🙋 🙏 Community Asks
Buddy Program: For everyone that signed up please check your email. For those who haven't, sign up here!
Get Involved: we are eager to to grow our volunteer team to help create great content, organize more fantastic events, broaden our inclusion.
Feedback: How is the Newsletter doing? We’re trying different formats/content. In case the hyperlink above didn’t get your attention, maybe a bright orange button will!
🏢 Job Openings
New postings below - over 100 more on our community job board!
Summer Intern at 310.ai
Various Roles at Bunkerhill Health