For the quarter ended March 31, Twist reported $13.6 million in revenues, up from $6.2 million during the same period last year.

It placed 39 net new ePlex analyzers, expanding the global installed base to 393 placements and growing its installed base by 72 percent compared to the prior-year period.

The company increased its 2019 revenue forecast and shrunk its net loss significantly in its push to become cash flow breakeven by the end of the year.

The firm reported that test volumes for its Cologuard colorectal cancer screening test also rose 79 percent year over year.

The UW researchers have filed for a patent on the variable voltage method but have not disclosed commercialization plans.

Agilent has agreed to provide customized high-fidelity oligo microarrays for the nucleic acid detection step in SomaLogic's Somascan assay.

The developer of assays to detect drug-resistant strains of HIV has now branched into Lassa detection, and will potentially be seeking instrument partners.

Using genome sequence data for 429 accessions, an international team tracked chickpea's origin and spread, while identifying markers for important traits.

The US National Institutes of Health has prevented two doctors critical of a study from speaking with investigators, according to the Wall Street Journal.

The Hill reports that Democrats in the US House of Representatives have proposed adding about $2 billion to the National Institutes of Health budget for 2020.

Australia's ABC News looks into what's next after the country decides not to regulate some gene editing of plants and animals.

In PNAS this week: core Pseudomonas aeruginosa genome, study of ancient Paget's disease of the bone, and more.

With 10,000 of Mayo's patients now sequenced for 77 genes, a subset of this information is being used to inform care while the bulk of the data is spurring research projects.

The in vitro diagnostic is designed to detect whole gene segments for influenza A and B viruses and can characterize viruses as seasonal or nonseasonal.

Co-Diagnostics has announced that Brent Satterfield, one of the firm's directors, has resigned from its board. He will remain as the firm's CSO. 

The firm will acquire GenePOC for $50 million with potential for milestone payments of an addition $70 million by Meridian's fiscal 2023.

The firm's clinical service revenues were up also 51 percent, and it also announced it has signed a contract with insurer Humana.

The new funding brings the Series B total to £23.3 million for the British clinical decision support technology developer.

Whole-genome sequencing on 62 families revealed rare reproduction- and metabolism-related variants in the androgen production pathway gene DENND1A.

Luminex has since fixed the problem with a software update but a similar issue with non-specific amplification has also affected two targets on BioFire's GI panel. 

Thermo Fisher Scientific has launched several new MagMax nucleic acid isolation kits. The kits, which uses MagMax magnetic bead technology, are optimized for Thermo Fisher KingFisher Flex and Duo Prime instruments. The MagMax Microbiome Ultra Nucleic Acid Isolation Kit is designed to isolate RNA and DNA from microbiome samples such as stool and soil samples; the MagMax Viral/Pathogen Ultra Nucleic Acid Isolation Kit is made for recovering RNA and DNA from difficult-to-lyse microorganisms, including gram-positive bacteria, yeast, and fungi; and the MagMax Viral/Pathogen Nucleic Acid Isolation Kit is for isolating RNA and DNA from viral particles and gram-negative bacteria found in samples such as blood, swabs, urine, and viral transport media.

New England Biolabs has launched NEBNext Enzymatic Methyl-seq (EM-seq), an enzyme-based method for methylation sequencing that is an alternative to bisulfite sequencing. The EM-seq kit involves a two-step enzymatic conversion that first protects 5-methyl cytosine and 5-hydroxymethyl cytosine from deamination using TET2 and an oxidation enhancer, and then deaminates unmethylated cytosines, converting them to uracil. Because the process does not rely on chemical treatment, as with bisulfite conversion, the DNA is not damaged, according to the company. The kit includes the required reagents for EM-seq conversion and library preparation for sequencing on Illumina instruments.

The firm reported double-digit organic growth in North America, Europe, and China, driven in part by sales from its antibody portfolio and Simple Western instruments.

Caprion said that the acquisition helps it acquire expertise in the analysis of myeloid-derived suppressor cells and expand its geographic coverage.

Freenome has appointed Cheng-Ho Jimmy Lin, as its chief scientific officer, with responsibilities for scientific strategy, research operations, and growing the company’s scientific team. Prior to joining the private sector, Lin led the intramural clinical genomics program at the National Cancer Institute at the National Institutes of Health. At Johns Hopkins and Washington University in St Louis, he also spearheaded the computational analyses of exome sequencing studies in multiple cancer types.

Lin's most recent role was CSO for oncology at Natera, where he drove the development and launch of that firm's blood-based assays for cancer monitoring residual disease detection. He holds an MD and PhD in cellular and molecular medicine and a Masters in health sciences in bioinformatics from Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.