Month: October 2024

BioNTech’s mRNA Innovations: Fighting Diseases Effectively

Andreas Czech from BioNTech in Germany presented at the Biopharma Day in Boston on “The potential of therapeutic mRNA—and how to measure it.” They spoke about the vision of the BioNTech pharmaceutical company: to use the immune system’s power to fight cancer and other diseases. The company was founded in 2008 by three tumor immunologists. […]
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Advancements in AAV Genome Sequencing

Keith Connolly from Modalis Therapeutics spoke at the Biopharma Day in Boston. The title of the session was “Nanopore sequencing and functional screening of AAV genomes for optimal production and function.” Modalis is developing a platform for gene expression modulation. They have been packaging promoters, transgenes, poly(A) signals into AAV genomes. They have been using […]
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Innovative NESSI-Seq for Biomarker Discovery

Chad Pollard from Wasatch BioLabs spoke at the Biopharma Day at NCM Boston. The session’s title was “NESSI-Seq: novel cfDNA methylation assays for biomarker discovery and precision medicine.” Pollard described Wasatch BioLabs as a high-throughput nanopore sequencing lab. NESSI-Seq is a methylation analysis method. They developed a method to provide more methylation information than the […]
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Nanopore Sequencing in Cell Therapy Testing

Stacy L. Springs from the MIT Center for Biomedical Innovation presented at the NCM Biopharma Day in Boston on “Application of nanopore long-read sequencing to sterility testing for cell therapy products.” Springs spoke about the diversity of impurities in biological medicines. They spoke about the need for rapid sterility testing in cell therapy manufacturing. Springs […]
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Understanding CoNS-seq: A Breakthrough in Viral Safety

Charles A. Swofford from the MIT Center for Biomedical Innovation presented as part of the Biopharma Day in Boston. The title of the session was “A sensitive sample preparation pipeline for adventitious virus detection using nanopore sequencing.” They emphasized the importance of viral safety assurance for biologics. The two assays used are in vivo virus […]
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Nanopore Sequencing Revolutionizes Cell Engineering

Daniel K. Fabian from Lonza in the UK presented at the Biopharma Day in Boston on “Precision cell engineering enabled through nanopore sequencing.” Lonza Biologics produces therapeutic molecules for clients using CHO cell-based manufacturing pipelines. The first step is the construction of the vector. The DNA is transfected into their cell line, and clones are […]
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Advancements in Secondary Analysis for Variant Calling

Thydian Windsor, a Research Scientist in the Machine Learning team at Oxford Nanopore Technologies, gave the secondary analysis update at the Nanopore Community Meeting. They defined secondary analysis as “what does the collection of reads say in aggregate?” For variant calling, improvements on the base-calling side with base-calling models and motor enzymes have been released. […]
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Advancements in Bacterial and Plasmid Sequencing Techniques

Katherine Lawrence, from the Machine Learning and Bioinformatics team at Oxford Nanopore Technologies, spoke at the Nanopore Community Meeting on “Bacterial isolate and plasmid sequencing.” Lawrence began by emphasizing the importance of microbes and learning about their sequences. Long reads help assemble bacterial genomes efficiently. Bacterial genome modifications include 4mC, 5mC, and 6mA. Lawrence noted […]
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Basecalling Innovations in Direct RNA Sequencing

We’ve been discussing the direct RNA sequencing kit and process in class. Tonight, I watched Bronya Boydon, Machine Learning Bioinformatician with Oxford Nanopore Technologies, provide the “Direct RNA basecaller update” as part of the Nanopore Community Meeting. Boydon described how RNA is translocated through the pore. Direct RNA has the benefits of long reads, simplicity, […]
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Oxford Nanopore’s Dorado: Key Features and Enhancements Explained

Mike Vella, Senior Director of Machine Learning for Oxford Nanopore Technologies, provided an update on Dorado at the Nanopore Community Meeting in Boston. Vella explained that Dorado “powers Nanopore base-calling” by converting the raw signals into sequences. Stand-alone Dorado is a command-line tool. Dorado is also integrated into MinKNOW. Vella announced that among the updates, […]
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