The company has not published on its technology, but claims proprietary materials and methods allow it to detect targets in unprocessed biological samples with sub-femtomolar sensitivity.

This week's news includes Orig3n, Biocept, Intel, Inspur, BGI, Alibaba Cloud, Precipio Diagnostics, Transgenomic, SenzaGen, Charles River Laboratories, MetaStat.

The researchers found that Cepheid's Xpert HCV viral load assay used at the point of care performed at levels comparable to a laboratory test.

A small study of prostate cancers from African American and European American men uncovered ancestry-associated splicing with apparent ties to tumor aggressiveness and resistance.

The study details the validation of the mass spec-based preterm birth test, which the company launched nationwide last month through its agreement with LabCorp.

Starting Oct. 1, the insurer will require clinicians and labs who order genetic and molecular tests for their patients to first get approval. 

A PLOS Biology study finds that cancer researchers tend to overestimate the extent to which preclinical studies may be reproducible.

A number of genomics companies have made Technology Review's list of smart companies.

President Donald Trump has nominated Jerome Adams as surgeon general, Politico reports.

In Science this week: two proteins may help treat muscular dystrophy, and more.

A Canadian research team has reported beta-blockers alter the gene expression changes that take place in a mouse model of heart failure.

The approach, published earlier this week in Nature Biomedical Engineering, uses long-adapter single-strand oligonucleotide (LASSO) probes.

Karius has appointed Todd Whitson as chief commercial officer. Whitson joins Karius from CareDx where he served as CCO. Prior to CareDx, he served as VP of commercial operations for Ariosa Diagnostics, now part of Roche, and led sales at Genzyme Genetics, later acquired by LabCorp.

Ginkgo Bioworks has appointed Ena Cratsenburg as chief business officer and Will Schroeder as head of metabolic engineering. Cratsenburg joins Ginkgo with over a decade of experience in business development in the biotech space. She has held positions as senior VP of the consumer sector at Intrexon, senior VP of business development at Evolva, and VP of business development for Amyris. Schroeder joins Ginkgo from Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) where he served as CP of technology. Before ADM, Schroeder spent 12 years at Cargill, overseeing strain and fermentations process development.

Illumina and Amgen co-developed the test, which will determine whether metastatic colorectal cancer patients will benefit from Vectibix.

With CE marking for the gram-positive and gram-negative panels, the firm has achieved the designation for its family of three ePlex bloodstream infection assays.

GeneNews has signed a binding agreement with multinational private equity firm Milost Global for up to $10 million in equity and debt financing.

The sample prep technologies firm intends to use the funding to expand its commercial channels, among other things.

Researchers outlined the "nicking enzyme-assisted sequencing" (NicE-seq) protocol and presented results from proof-of-principal open chromatin profiling experiments.

This finding has the potential to expand the current utility of the panel to identify an important subgroup of people who would benefit from less treatment, the firm said. 

Patients who've learned their genetic risk of disease worry about healthcare law changes in the US, Kaiser Health News reports.

Hopkins' Geoffrey Ling discusses the promise of genomic vaccines at Scientific American.

Postdocs supported by external funding are less likely to have access to paid parental leave, Nature News reports.