I thought some people who read this blog might be interested in the Appled Computational Genomics Course (ACGC) offered by Genome Canada. It teaches the basics of UNIX, Perl, and several bioinformatics and sequence annotation tools. The next course is in the Spring of 2009 but has no location or dates (perhaps they meant Spring 2010). The course with an actual location (University of Calgary) is July 14-20, 2009. Canada should be nice that time... Full Post
According to Forbes, personal genomics will be one of the five technologies that will shape the next decade. They predict (not too boldly) that personal genome sequencing will become widely available and pave the way to personalized medicine. I wonder where they would get an idea like that? They mention Pacific Biosciences, Knome (George Church), and venture capital darling Complete Genomics as players in this field. They somehow fail to mention privacy concerns or informatics/IT... Full Post
On the heels of the bad news earlier this week that the RIAA and giant media corporations were getting the second and third spots at the Justice Department, we get some good news: Rep. Dick Boucher (D-VA) will be the head of the House Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet. Rep. Boucher and Rep. Ed Markey are swapping chairmanships, with Rep. Markey getting the ostensibly more prestigious Subcommittee on Energy and the Environment. It could... Full Post
There is a good story in The New York Times about the R statistical programming language entitled Data Analysts Captivated by R’s Power. Analysts are using R more and more at The Genome Center. An entertaining quote in the article comes from R's competition: “I think it addresses a niche market for high-end data analysts that want free, readily available code," said Anne H. Milley, director of technology product marketing at SAS. She adds, “We... Full Post
Despite talk of the power of all those small donors, it seems, not surprisingly, that big money has not lost all influence in Washington. President-elect Obama has selected one of the RIAA's favorite lawyers, Tom Perrelli, for Associate Attorney General (the number three spot at the Justice Department). Not only that, the Deputy Attorney General (the number two position at Justice) is set to be filled by David Ogden, who's department at Justice (when he... Full Post