SomaLogic has appointed Todd Johnson as executive VP of business development and strategy and Ruben Gutierrez as general counsel.

Johnson was previously senior VP for care transformation at Avia, a digital transformation partner for healthcare organizations. He also served as CEO of HealthLoop until it was acquired by GetWellNetwork, at which point he became chief strategy officer. Before that, he was the founding CEO of medical documentation firm Salar, which was later acquired by Transcend Services. Johnson holds a BA in computer science from Cornell University.

Gutierrez comes to SomaLogic from Natera, where he was VP of legal and corporate affairs. Prior to that, he was general counsel of Human Longevity, and before that, division counsel of biosciences at Thermo Fisher Scientific. Earlier, he held various roles in the legal group of Life Technologies. Gutierrez holds an LLM in taxation from New York University School of Law, a JD from the University of Southern California Gould School of Law, and a BA from the University of California, Los Angeles.

Molecular Testing Labs announced that Christopher Hall has been appointed medical director of clinical affairs at the company. He'll be responsible for the firm's clinical operations along with the development and promotion of diagnostic initiatives focused on sexual health, wellness, and chronic conditions, the company said.

Currently, Hall is the medical director at Face2Face, an AIDS organization that offers HIV prevention education and supportive services for people with HIV. He is also a senior medical advisor at Q Care Plus, a telemedicine practice for facilitating access to PrEP

He has served as the clinical affairs medical director for the STD Control Branch of the California Department of Public Health and as medical director at the University of California, San Francisco's California Prevention Training Center. 

Hall previously worked with the National AIDS Network and the National Hemophilia Foundation, as well as the East Bay AIDS Center and San Francisco AIDS Foundation. He has also been involved with the National Coalition of STD Directors.

The downgrade follows an announcement on Monday that the point-of-care diagnostic firm's CEO was stepping down in the wake of product delays.

BioFlyte has developed a system to collect pathogens from ambient air, detecting and identifying them using the FilmArray system from BioFire.

A suite of new studies examined how liquid biopsies could personalize treatment strategies in a range of cancer types.

Researchers used ultra-low-pass whole genome sequencing and cell-free DNA fragment size selection to detect pre-cancer in neurofibromatosis type 1 patients.

A team led by researchers at the University of Southern California analyzed genetic links between blood cell traits and ALL susceptibility in children.

The Canadian company sees nanopore sequencing analysis as an affordable, efficient way to find pathogens without the need for targeted PCR and culture tests.

A US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advisory committee has indicated its support for booster doses of SARS-CoV-2 vaccines, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Johnson & Johnson's experimental HIV vaccine failed to provide sufficient protections against infections, according to Reuters.

CNBC reports that jury selection is to begin today for the trial of Theranos founder and former CEO Elizabeth Holmes.

In PNAS this week: omic analysis of heart aging in mice, analysis of speciation among amphibians, and more.

BC Platforms and Sentieon have jointly introduced integrated next-generation sequencing analysis software called BC|Genome X-10. The new product, which runs on the Microsoft Azure cloud, is targeted at commercial laboratories offering clinical NGS testing according to American College of Medical Genetics and Genomics (ACMG) or American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) guidelines. The firms have been collaborating since 2018.

The multiyear collaboration agreement brings together two of the corporate champions of the MPEG-G genomic data representation and compression standard.

Both studies relied on data collected via the FinnGen project, an international effort to collect genotype and health registry data on 500,000 people in Finland by 2023.

The extraction-free SalivaDirect test originally received Emergency Use Authorization from the agency last year.

The two-year PACT grant will fund the application of the EpiSwitch technology to the analysis of primary and acquired ICI resistance in several clinical trials.

Genetic Technologies recently signed an agreement to commercialize its test for assessing a COVID-19 patient's risk of severe disease in the US with Infinity Biologix.

The company highlighted growth in its hospital testing business, which increased 47 percent with 34 contracted partner hospitals now on the books.

The deal comes about eight months after Ancestry shut down its health and lifestyle DNA test business to focus exclusively on the genetic genealogy market.

Point-of-care molecular diagnostic testing firm Talis Biomedical announced that effective immediately Brian Coe has stepped down as president, CEO, and director, and will continue to work with the company as an advisor. Talis also announced that Kim Popovits has been appointed interim CEO, and will lead the search to hire its next president and CEO.

Popovits is the former chairman of the board, president, and CEO of Genomic Health, which was acquired by Exact Sciences in 2019. Prior to joining Genomic Health in 2002, Popovits held several senior management roles at Genentech.

Popovits has been a member of the board of Talis since 2020, and has stepped down in connection with her appointment as interim CEO, so that the firm can remain in compliance with requirements for board independence. She also serves on the boards of 10x Genomics and Kiniksa Pharmaceuticals.

Labs and commercial developers have created simple, inexpensive PCR assays for the SARS-CoV-2 Delta variant that they say could help surveillance efforts.

The firm's other businesses saw steady growth, with cancer prevention revenues up 94 percent and infection prevention and control revenues more than tripling.

DNAStar has released version 17.3 of its Lasergene software for DNA, RNA, and protein sequencing assembly and analysis. The latest release adds viral genome analysis workflow support for Pacific Biosciences and Oxford Nanopore long-read sequences, including data from PCR-amplified fragments generated according to Artic network protocols. The update is optimized for genomic analysis and variant identification to support COVID-19 research.

The National Human Genome Research Institute has renewed its agreement to have the Coriell Institute manage its collection of cell lines and DNA.