The UK's Parliament has issued a report criticizing the newly appointed chairman of the Medical Research Council.

In the US, rules governing GMO-based food are just beginning to emerge -- giving fans hope for increased investment and opponents worried about a GMO-style backlash from the public.

Jonathan Eisen discusses a new paper that, sadly, isn't open access.

Evolutionary scientist Martin Nowak is profiled in the New York Times.

Researchers found a gene for left-handedness that also slightly increases the risk of schizophrenia.

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An increase in service revenues, a steady flow of government contract revenue, and a split from parent Acacia Research scheduled in two weeks’ time indicate that the firm’s bumpy transition from research market array vendor to premier testing service could find a soft landing over the next few quarters.

Last week, Illumina said it is increasing its manufacturing capacity for the Genome Analyzer, and adding new staff in marketing, sales, and support. ABI, meanwhile, has decided to move up the full commercial launch of its SOLiD sequencer to October from early 2008.

GATC’s decision to add ABI’s SOLiD, the latest entry in the rapidly evolving next-gen sequencing market, to its services offering was based both on soaring demand for high-throughput sequencing services as well as a desire to offer customers a variety of technologies.

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NIEHS, Perlegen Publish SNP Database, Haplotype Map for 15 Mouse Strains   The National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences and Perlegen Sciences have published results from mouse genome-resequencing and genomic-analys

The UniProt Consortium has released UniMES, the UniProt Metagenomic and Environmental Sequences database, a repository for metagenomic and environmen

Gene Logic has received US Patent No. 7,251,642, “Analysis engine and work space manager for use with gene expression data.” The patent describes a platform for managing, integrating, and analyzing gene expression data.

Ramsey Hashem has joined Affymetrix as senior vice president of global operations, the company said last week.   Hashem was most recently sales director for GE Healthcare’s Clinical Systems Division.

Helicos Reports Growing Net Loss in Q2 in Preparation for Product Launch   Helicos BioSciences, preparing the launch of its HeliScope next-generation sequencer later this year, reported growing losses and increasing R&D expenses

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Illumina believes that digital gene expression applications on its Genome Analyzer next-generation sequencing platform have the capability to significantly impact the gene expression market, but future growth drivers will remain in the more traditional markets of array-based SNP genotyping and gene expression, as well as sequencing, according to the company’s CEO.

While the positive quarterly results and market reaction indicate that recent strategic restructuring in the firm’s management have begun to pay off for Affymetrix, they also underscore the important role that the DNA Analysis Business has begun to play in the future of the company.

Nine of the 10 initial volunteers for the Personal Genome Project spoke to In Sequence recently about their motivation for joining and their expectations for the project. These ten will help prepare for the second phase of the project, which aims to enroll 100,000 participants.

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