In an effort to harness and allow sharing of exponentially-developing genetic data, the Broad Institute will launch “Genome Space,”–a co-operative Web based tool aimed at “frictionless” data transfer, later this week.

So said Jill Merisov, PhD, the Broad’s associate director and Chief Informatics officer,  in a keynote speech at the opening of the Bio-IT World conference  yesterday,  in Boston. The Broad is a Harvard-MIT research center located in Kendall Square, Cambridge.

In her talk, Merisov pointed out that just ten years ago,  scientists announced that they had identified all of the genes present in human beings.  Since then, researchers  have discovered 30 million genetic variations among 1000 different individuals, 3000 genetically-related disease traits, and a multitude of cancer types. Such findings are  now being used to determine the genetic bases of  many diseases, to develop treatments for those diseases, and to determine for which patients particular treatments are likely to be effective. In another ten years,  she said, such “personalized medicine” will be commonly used by doctors, in clinics.

These advances are due in large part to less expensive,  increasingly sophisticated and sensitive computer technologies that have led to an “explosion”  of data ,  to less “noisy”  data, and to new, international ways of  reviewing  the data, Merisov explained.  Scientists can now buy the technology and carry out sequencing in their own labs and “”computing is now integral to every aspect of biomedical research.”

But these developments also mean that there are now  seven-to-ten  thousand bioinformatics tools available for download on the Web and five thousand databases–many of  which are “out of reach”  for scientists who do not have sophisticated programming skills.

The new tool  “bridges the gaps between bioinformatics tools, making it possible for [scientists ] to move data smoothly between these tools, leveraging the available analyses and visualizations in each of these tools,” according to the Genome Space Web site.

Genome Space also allows for data storage in the Amazon cloud [a computing platform of Amazon.com]  and “provides necessary file format transformations whenever a scientists selects an analysis or visualization within one of the tools.

The GenomeSpace project is a collaboration of the Mesirov and Regev laboratories at the Broad Institute; the Chang laboratory at Stanford University; the Ideker laboratory at the University of California, San Diego; the Nekrutenko laboratory at Pennsylvania State University; the Segal laboratory at the Weizmann Institute of Science; and the Haussler and Kent laboratories at the University of California, Santa Cruz. GenomeSpace is funded by the National Human Genome Research Institute, with additional support from Amazon Web Services, according to the Genome Space Web site.

The Bio-IT Conference Expo 2012   goes through April 26.

–Anita M. Harris

Speaking at the British Consulate in Kendall Square, last week,  Morgan Stanley Chief Market Strategist David Kelly predicted slow (3%) growth for the US economy in 2012–unless  there are no major disruptions  like  last year’s  Arab Spring, the European Debt Crisis,  the Tsunami in Japan or  what he termed a “home grown” crisis like the one created when Congress allowed this country to hover on the brink of default rather than raise the debt ceiling.

While the deficit is cause for concern, he said, a default would have thrown the nation into a true “great depression.” In diminishing its debt,  the US should proceed slowly. Both tax and entitlement reforms are needed, he said, and moving bit by bit can lead to a balanced budget within 7 years (?) whereas trying to change everything all at once could lead to disaster.

Despite the crises of  2011,   he pointed out, the Standard and Poor’s Index ended up  just .003 percent lower than it had been  at the year’s start. The coming year will  be one of uncertainty, but “the US economy can grow through that, ” he said.

According to Kelly,   factors in several areas will  likely lead to growth:

Housing:
-The  current very low level of housing starts, low inventories and  rising rents will lead to greater demand for homes, especially as consumer finances continue to improve.

-With mortgage rates at 3.8 percent, consumers are refinancing their homes, which means that consumers now have 14% disposable income, compared with 11% in 2007.

-This is the most affordable housing market “ever. ” Mortgage payments now account for  just 10 percent of average household income–which means that people have more money to spend elsewhere.

Automobile:  

-The age of the average vehicle in the US has risen from 9.8 several years ago to ten years;  as cars break  down, sales will go up.

Capital Spending
-Companies have held back on capital spending; as confidence rises,  spending will increase.%.

The key to it all, he emphasized, is confidence that the economy will improve.  Still, he said, he wished that  Ben Bernacke and the Federal Reserve Bank would take the year off “to work on their golf game” instead of telling people that interest rates will remain low for the next few years–which encourages people to put off spending.  What is more, he said,  keeping interest rates low will discourage banks from lending–because they do not want to be locked in to low rates for thirty years, when they know that rates are likely to rise a few years from now.

A link to Morgan Stanley’s  Guide to the Markets for Q1 2012     is available at

https://www.jpmorganfunds.com/cm/Satellite?pagename=jpmfVanityWrapper&UserFriendlyURL=insidemarket_browsetheguide

—Anita M. Harris

New Cambridge Observer is a publication of the Harris Communications Group, a strategic PR firm specializing in integrated marketing communications, thought leadership,  media relations and social media for companies in health, science, technology and energy, worldwide.