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A New Take on the 80/20 Rule

It's good to know that other people's minds wander during talks at conferences, too. At What You're Doing Is Rather Desperate, Neil Saunders tells us what he was thinking during some zone-outs at ComBio this year: one, that computational biologists consider information to be communally shared, not proprietary; and two, bioinformaticists need to have a variety of projects in order to be most productive. He suggests that labs follow Google's 20 percent rule - programmers spend 20 percent of their time working on fun side projects of interest - to keep the bioinformatics folks happy.

The Scan

Positive Framing of Genetic Studies Can Spark Mistrust Among Underrepresented Groups

Researchers in Human Genetics and Genomics Advances report that how researchers describe genomic studies may alienate potential participants.

Small Study of Gene Editing to Treat Sickle Cell Disease

In a Novartis-sponsored study in the New England Journal of Medicine, researchers found that a CRISPR-Cas9-based treatment targeting promoters of genes encoding fetal hemoglobin could reduce disease symptoms.

Gut Microbiome Changes Appear in Infants Before They Develop Eczema, Study Finds

Researchers report in mSystems that infants experienced an enrichment in Clostridium sensu stricto 1 and Finegoldia and a depletion of Bacteroides before developing eczema.

Acute Myeloid Leukemia Treatment Specificity Enhanced With Stem Cell Editing

A study in Nature suggests epitope editing in donor stem cells prior to bone marrow transplants can stave off toxicity when targeting acute myeloid leukemia with immunotherapy.