Dairy makers are hoping pured fruit and genetically screened cows can help win back consumers who have soured on milk.

U.S. milk sales are down 11% by volume since 2000, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture data. Plant-based milk substitutes have taken some of the remaining market share. And a turn away from packaged foods has sapped...

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Dairies' Fix for Souring Milk Sales: Genetics and Bananas - WSJ - Wall Street Journal (subscription)

A scientist from The University of Manchester has hit upon an innovative way to control greenflies which infest our gardens and farms.

Dr Mouhammad Shadi Khudr, discovered that living lacewing insects- which are used as a way to biocontrol greenflies are also effective after they have died.

Dr Khudr, an evolutionary ecologist based at the University's Division of Evolution and Genomic Sciences, discovered how genetic variations in greenflies' respond to the fear of predation by lacewing known as aphid lions.

The greenflys' genetic variation and life history influenced how they responded to traces of their predator.

He hit upon the discovery while looking at how different lineages of one species of greenfly responded to lacewings on a crop.

Even though each greenfly line had a distinct way of responding to the exposure to the traces of the aphid lion they all suffered from dramatic reduction in their reproduction, he says.

Dr khudr designed and lead the collaborative research, which was funded by the Freie Universitt Berlin (Free University of Berlin).

The research is published in the journal Scientific Reports today.

He said: "Whether alive or dead, lacewings make it more difficult for aphids to reproduce.

"The smell and visual impact of dead predators reduce the greenflies' capacity to give offspring and the way they clump together on the plants they infest."

He added: "This approach is at the crossroads of agricultural, evolutionary and ecological science.

"It is a unique way of understanding the effect of genetic variability corresponding with the risk of predation and thus should receive much more attention.

"It has organic, easy to produce and affordable applications and thus has a promising potential to help solve an age old problem which frustrates many gardeners.

"And it would be most interesting to see if this approach might also work with other pests and biocontrol agents in other agricultural systems."

Explore further: The genetics of life and death in an evolutionary arms-race

More information: Mouhammad Shadi Khudr et al. Fear of predation alters clone-specific performance in phloem-feeding prey, Scientific Reports (2017). DOI: 10.1038/s41598-017-07723-6

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Genetics takes fight to gardeners' green foe - Phys.org - Phys.Org

Dairy makers are hoping pured fruit and genetically screened cows can help win back consumers who have soured on milk.

U.S. milk sales are down 11% by volume since 2000, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture data. Plant-based milk substitutes have taken some of the remaining market share. And a turn away from packaged foods has sapped sales of breakfast cereal, a key milk accompaniment.

Milk companies are fighting back with products they are billing as an improvement on the original.

"Innovation is the only way out," said Blake Waltrip, chief executive for the U.S. at A2 Milk Co., a New Zealand-based company that sells milk that lacks a protein that may cause indigestion for some.

Big food makers are testing new products, too. Danone SA's Sir Bananas product combines milk with pured fruit, which it hopes will stand out from other flavored-milk drinks and is now available nationwide. Fairlife LLC, a partnership between Coca-Cola Co. and Select Milk Producers Inc., is selling "ultra-filtered" milk it says contains more calcium and protein than regular milk. It is also offering milkshakes containing antioxidants and prebiotic fiber, which is intended to aid digestive health.

A2 uses genetic tests on its cows to make sure they will produce milk that contains only a protein known as A2, not the additional A1 protein that some research suggests could cause indigestion. The company has captured more than 8% of the market in Australia, up from about 3% in 2012, according to Euromonitor International, in one of the few developed markets where milk sales continue to grow.

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In Australia, where agriculture plays a bigger role in the economy than the U.S., "milk is still seen as a staple," said Alice Yu, research analyst at Euromonitor in Sydney. "Everyone has a bottle of milk in their fridge," she said.

A2 Milk hopes to convince U.S. consumers that its milk can help them avoid the indigestion many people associate with lactose intolerance. "Literally within an hour, the consumer knows whether this solves their issue," Mr. Waltrip said. The company, which started selling milk in California in 2015, has struck distribution deals with Whole Foods Market Inc. and Publix Super Markets Inc.

Competitors and some scientists question A2's claim that milk without the A1 protein is easier to digest.

In Australia, A2 Milk sued competitor Lion Dairy & Drinks alleging that the rival's advertising misled customers into thinking Lion's milk didn't contain the A1 protein. Lion filed a countersuit challenging claims that milk without the A1 protein is easier to digest. A2 Milk says scientific studies suggest a benefit.

A2 Milk will also face competition in the U.S. from fast-growing, plant-based milk alternatives. The National Milk Producers Federation and other industry groups are pushing Congress to bar the makers of those products from marketing them as milk.

The dairy companies are fighting over a shrinking pool of milk demand. Milk sales dropped 14% in dollar terms the year through June from that period in 2013, according to Nielsen figures. That is one reason farmers are pouring excess milk into their fields and manure pits. Farmers in parts of the Northeast and Midwest dumped more than 250 million pounds of milk last year, a recent record, USDA data shows. They are on pace to dump even more milk this year.

Dean Foods Co. lowered profit guidance and saw its shares tumble Tuesday as executives with the U.S.'s largest milk producer acknowledged their struggles with declining fluid milk sales, and no end in sight.

"At some point you will see a bottoming in this category, and I'm not sure when you will predict that," Dean Chief Executive Ralph Scozzafava told investors. The company earlier this year launched versions of its TruMoo flavored-milk drinks that it says are free from genetically modified material.

Nate Donnay, director of Dairy Market Insight at INTL FCStone, questioned whether A2 and other companies charging a premium for their enhanced milks can reverse the broader turn away from the beverage.

"The target market is fairly narrow," he said.

--Jacob Bunge contributed to this article.

Write to Mike Cherney at mike.cherney@wsj.com and Heather Haddon at heather.haddon@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

August 09, 2017 05:44 ET (09:44 GMT)

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Dairies' fix for souring milk sales: genetics and bananas | Fox Business - Fox Business

A push to put the power of discovery science back into livestock breeding as brought home a genetics world achiever, writes Andrea Fox.

Last updated09:20, August 10 2017

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Top genetics scientist Dorian Garrick has come home to New Zealand to head a new Massey breeding centre.

Returned world-leading Kiwi scientist Dorian Garrick likes to say his research at a US university was funded by the Islamic jihad.

The leader of the newly-launched Massey University Al Rae Centre for Genetics and Breeding has been able to utterthis little showstopperquite a bit lately in response to predictable inquiries about how he will cope with New Zealand's much-lamentedscience funding squeeze after America's comparative largesse.

It's nota word of a lie, says the professor, lured home from a stellar international career to lend gravitas to a venture which aims to build enviable expertise in quantitative breeding, genetics and genomics to benefit agriculture and create the next generation of scientists with these skills for the plant and animal breeding industries.

For the past 10 years, Garrick has held the Jay Lush endowed professorship chair in animal breeding and genetics at Iowa State University. The genesis of that chair was a $1 million donation from alumnus and Hizbollah kidnap victim Tom Sutherland. Sutherland hoped others who had benefited from the university's pre-eminent animal science programme would follow his lead to build the endowed professorship honouring Lush, considered the father of modern animal breeding and Sutherland's major professor.

Sutherland gave away many millions of dollars to charity after receiving $23 million compensation awarded by an American court in 2001 from Iranian assets frozen over Iran's role in financing Hizbollah militants. Sutherland, who died last year at 85, was abducted in Beirut in 1985 while dean of agriculture at the American University of Beirut. He was held for six years, often chained to a wall in darkness, one of dozens of westerners taken hostage in Beirut at the height of Lebanon's civil war.

At his office in AgResearch's Ruakura campus Homestead, Garrick says while it was a boon to be able to tap the fruit of the Iran funds for his research and teaching at Iowa State, there's plenty to be positive about in his new job downunder.

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His salary has dipped a bit but his motivation in coming home was never money, he says. He always intended to return and has kept up his links with Massey, from where he graduated with first class honours in 1981 and which was his first employer. The new job isn't fulltime he's retaining an interest in a genomics software company he co-founded in the US.

But there's no getting away from the fact that the future of new AL Rae Centre, named in memory of another founder of modern animal breeding, Garrick's Massey professor Alexander Lindsay Rae, will depend on cold hard cash as much as the prestige of the Garrick name.

A cornerstone of the new discovery science centre was a $250,000 gift from the Norman FB Barry Foundation which enabled the funding of four PhD scholarships, one postdoctoral fellow, two eminent visiting scientists and funds for workshops.

"It's a small amount in the whole perspective of things but the advantage is it's not dedicated to a particular project. With most of our research grants, by the time you get it, you know where all the money is going to go," says Garrick, who gained his PhD at Cornell in the US.

"That means you don't have the money that if a student walks through the door showing a lot of interest, you can't say sit down, enrol, you're starting tomorrow. Or if we come up with some serendipitous discovery and we want to do a new trial next week, we don't have the funds to do that with research grants.

"Funding an additional student or an experiment can be done with unencumbered funds and that's where donations like the Barry Foundation's are tremendously valuable."

The new centre's co-director and key driver, Massey professor Hugh Blair makes no bones about how important unencumbered cash gifts are to science.

"The country's top students have been enticed away from discovery science in genetics because of greater salaries in banking and other agribusiness areas.

"Low salaries for PhD students in New Zealand have resulted in more attractive opportunities for talented people elsewhere..this has led to under-achievement in discovery science for a number of years, with similar science centres around New Zealand suffering from a lack of resources and a short-term focus driven by an industry keen on solving the issues at hand."

For years, Blair says, there has been a lack of research in quantitative genetics in favour of molecular genetics. "We want to marry these two areas to get a picture of the overall merit of the animal."

Garrick's wasted no time applying to the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment for "substantial" funds and says some funding is also promised from Beef + Lamb Genetics and DairyNZ. Funding and support conversations are also under way with sector participants such as LIC, CRV Ambreed and the wood industry Crown Research Institute Scion.

Wellington-born Garrick - hardwired for a career in science, his father had a doctorate in shark science - says some things in the New Zealand research science world are looking up since he left the country in 2002 to join Colorado State University, where he stayed for five years before going to Iowa State.

While he supports scientists getting overseas experience and seeking fresh mentors, his exit to Colorado was spurred by a cocktail of negative developments during his time in the AL Rae chair at Massey University, a post he took up in 1994.

"(Initially) I had seven PhD graduates and worked in a range of different industries including forestry. Some students came through our undergraduate ag-science programmes and others from offshore and we did a lot of direct research with industry.

"About that time New Zealand was swinging towards user-pays and capturing intellectual property and keeping ideas secret so they might be patented. The media was portraying agriculture as a sunset industry and the government was funding three year degree programmes rather than four year programmes.

"As each one of my PhD students finished I wasn't able to find a replacement to keep the programme going. I went from seven to zero PhD students. I designed a large experiment for the Dairy Board that would have involved genomics and was hopeful it would allow us to involve a number of graduate students, but Fonterra which inherited the project and created the subsidiary ViaLactica to manage it, wanted it to be kept fairly secret and run on their own properties, not involving graduate students."

The matings for this project had been completed but it would be several years before useful data would be generated for discovery, so it was time to leave, Garrick recalls.

He intended to stay at Colorado university three years but when the time was up New Zealand didn't have the jobs he wanted, which would have involved solving industry problems, publishing the results and bringing in graduate students. He stayed on in America.

"While I've been away the government changed its policy involving graduate students and we've had an increase in the number wanting to do post-grad study. There's been a bit of relaxation over intellectual property and patenting and a recognition that a lot of research is better when it's published or shared than when it's secret."

Garrick says he was approached to return home by parties in the dairy and sheep and beef industries. There was an indication funds might be available for discovery science.

Meantime Massey had met industry stakeholders around the country for feedback on what was required to do a better job on genetic improvement.

"They identified the need for graduate training and for people to work across species and disciplines. All that converged to create the AL Rea Centre."

The Waikato and Ruakura were chosen to host the centre because Massey did not have a direct presence there, it was "neutral" territory, and major industry organisations were headquartered nearby.

Garrick says the first bid for government funding has been made in collaboration with a number of those parties and researchers.

While his statistics mining and computer modelling work on theoretical problems to do with genetic prediction is a foreign language to most of us, his message to NZ Inc and farmers is simple.

"There are fantastic business value propositions for genetic improvement. Many organisations know this already. If they invest in genetic improvement the country will benefit to a much greater extent than the investment (involved).

"But most of them recognise there is market failure in these activities so they need to be partially supported by funding somewhere else. I would like people to recognise that we are here to help. We are here to help train students or perhaps staff already working in those organisations."

Farmers, he says, could encourage their levy funding organisations to invest in genetic improvement activities and to take more of a long-term view.

"I'm always interested in working with ram and bull breeders and have a history of working with them. If they have ideas about doing things differently, we can work with them to help them implement it on their own farms.

"If they see something unusual with a genetic basis, let us know. We have discovered quite a number of genes responsible for diseases in particular because some commercial farmer has contacted us about lambs or calves on their farm with an unusual attribute and we've been able to trace it back and show it comes from a particular sire.

"In many cases we are able to use genomics to find the actual cause or mutation responsible for that effect. Then that allows them to select against that if the attribute is unfavourable. Sometimes if you discover something unfavourable it improves your knowledge about favourable attributes at the same time."

-Stuff

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Top genetics scientist back for the future - Stuff.co.nz

ALAMOSA The Alamosa Live Music Association is pleased to present Genetics at Sundays at Six, August 20, in Cole Park, Alamosa. This Denver-based progressive rock band is sure to put on a great show! The concert begins at 6 p.m. and is free.

Genetics consists of four gentlemen from Michigan who decided to move to Colorado with a massive sound, and ready or not, they have hit the ground running. Their complex music with its heavy composition and heavy improvisation, combined with their wide scope of influences shimmering through their dynamic performance, makes for an amazing and unique live music experience.

They have made quite a footprint in the last year alone, not only playing the inaugural Arise music festival but also opening up for acts such as George Clinton and Parliament Funkadelic, Toubab Krewe, Particle, Michael Kang (of SCI), David Murphy (formerly of STS9), Chuck Morris (of Nunchuck and Lotus), Dr.Fameus (Allen Aucoin of The Disco Biscuits), Ultraviolet Hippopotamus, Dopapod, Twiddle, and many more..

Genetics puts their all into every performance, and people are starting to talk. And with a full-length album in the works, and shows at bigger and bigger venues in BOTH Colorado and their home-state of Michigan, Genetics is preparing for a full-scale American brain-invasion.

Genetics is officially unveiling its second full-length album, Beast Mountain. Beast Mountain elaborates on the floaty-with-an-edge composition style, with plenty of unexpected twists and complex melodic layers. But this album also boasts a larger mission: bringing back the glory of the concept album. Evocative soundscapes take the listener on a thrilling journey through the woods, where something dangerous may be lurking amidst the soaring guitar harmonies, linear compositions, and danceable breakdowns. Almost a year in the making, the band recorded and mixed all 10 tracks themselves in their home studio.

ALMA Builds Community through Quality Live Music. For more information like ALMA on Facebook or go to http://www.almaonline.org.

Sundays at Six is generously sponsored by: 1st Southwest Bank, Alamosa Local Marketing District, Alamosa State Bank, Arbys, Body Tune Up, Chilis, City of Alamosa, Comfort Inn & Suites, Crestone Eagle, IHOP, Jay Meyer Insurance, KRZA, KW Farms, Movie Manor, Myers Brothers Truck & Tractor, Partnership Investments, Porter Realty, Rio Grande Savings & Loan, Salazar Natural Meats, SLV Federal Bank, SLV Health, SLV Rural Electric Co-op, Sports Print Plus, Steffens Quality Plumbing, Super 8, Treasure Alley, Valley Courier, Valley Motel, Valley Wide Health Systems, Wall, Smith & Bateman, Xcel Energy Foundation, and 2017 ALMA members.

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Sundays at Six features Genetics on August 20 - Valley Courier

As the ninth member to join the Ag Startup Engine (ASE), Peterson Genetics brings education, mentoring, and financing resources to Iowa entrepreneurs and start-ups focused on agriculture technologies.Here at Peterson Genetics, were excited about seeing the seed of a new idea grow into a successful business, says Mike Peterson, president of Peterson Genetics, Inc. Weve been providing soybean genetics to seed companies across the country for over 30 years, and hope that some of this knowledge can be put to use for the fledgling companies involved in the Ag Startup Engine.

The ASE, which is located at the Iowa State University Research Park in Ames, Iowa, was formed to address two fundamental gaps that prevent ag start-ups and entrepreneurs from being more successful in Iowa: early seed stage investment and organized mentorship from successful Iowa and Midwestern entrepreneurs.Launched two years ago, other ASE membersinclude Veridian Credit Union, Hertz Farm Management, Iowa Farm Bureaus Renew Rural Iowa, Next Level Ventures, Summit Agricultural Group, Ag Leader Technologies, Ag Ventures Alliance, and Peoples Company.Peterson Genetics reflects the heritage of seed industry entrepreneurs that have had such profound impact on the shape of modern agriculture, comments Kevin Kimle, director of the Agricultural Entrepreneurship Initiative at Iowa State University. We are very excited to have Peterson join the founding group of the Ag Startup Engine.The ASE works to provide agricultural entrepreneurs with a structured environment to help them move from a start-up concept to a seed-ready business. Working in partnership with ISUs Startup Factory Accelerator, the program is implementing an infrastructure for mentoring, rapid prototyping, product development, financing, and customer acquisition. ISUs Agricultural Entrepreneurship Initiative assisted in the creation and development of the ASE, which then advanced into a private sector entity governed by its members.Peterson not only brings his business expertise, but also his strong desire to foster entrepreneurship in agriculture, says Joel Harris, codirector of the ASE. If you want to succeed in starting an ag tech-focused venture, there is no better place to get started than the Iowa State University Research Park in Ames.

You can learn by visiting the Ag Startup Engine at agstartupengine.com.

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The Ag Startup Engine Adds Peterson Genetics to Its Efforts - Agriculture.com

NEW YORK (GenomeWeb) Fulgent Genetics reported on Monday that its second quarter revenues rose 17 percent as it integrated its newly reorganized sales force.

For the three months ended June 30, Fulgent's revenues climbed to $4.6 million from $4.0 million the year before.

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Fulgent Genetics Posts 17 Percent Increase in Q2 Revenues ... - GenomeWeb

Veritas Genetics,a leader in whole-genome sequencing, has acquired computing and bio-informatics firm Curoverse for an undisclosed amount. Curoverse provides infrastructure for life sciences companies to manage large datasets, including an open source platform called Arvados.

The acquisition isn't totally unexpected, since the two companies have a strong existing relationship. Not only were both companies cofounded by Harvard professor Dr. George Church, but Veritas and Curoverse have worked together on Harvard's Personal Genome Project.

"There are very few companies in the world that have the expertise and experience of more than a decade in aggregating genomic data and enabling machine learning," Church said in a statement. "I am pleased to see these two teams work even closer together. They not only share a common technological goal but also a commitment to making this invaluable information actionable and accessible."

Veritas offers whole genome sequencing for $999 and delivers results to customers' smartphones. The goal of the acquisition is to use Curoverse's big data expertise to enable Veritas to more easily use artificial intelligence and machine learning to extract insight from that genomic data.

"At Veritas, we are building a platform to sequence, and more importantly, interpret hundreds of thousands, and eventually millions, of human genomes per year," Veritas CEO Mirza Cifric said in a statement."This will only be possible by deploying AI and machine learning at scale, which requires data that is produced, stored and managed in a standardized way. Curoverse excels at this capability. Working closely together will not only benefit Veritas, but the industry as a whole."

Through initiatives like Arvados and the Common Workflow Language project, Curoverse has been involved in efforts to standardize the way genomic data is produced and aggregated. Veritas intends to continue supporting the goal of open standards for genomic data.

See more here:
Veritas Genetics acquires Curoverse to enable AI push ... - MobiHealthNews

As a college student at the University of Mount Union in Alliance, Ohio, Megan McMinn studied biology, hoping to one day become a physician's assistant.

But a desire to interact even more with patients led her down a different path in genetic counseling.

"What genetic counseling gave me was a good split between patient care and the hard science research end of things," McMinn said.

At Geisinger Health System in Danville, Pa., McMinn sees about six patients a day, working in oncology. Soon, she'll move onto a cardiology clinic, helping to identify genetic risks for individuals and potentially their families. The system currently has 25 genetic counselors on staff, but anticipates needing hundreds more as genetic testing becomes cheaper and more accessible.

The trend extends far beyond Geisinger, as the field has grown dramatically in the past decade, touching all aspects of health-care as medicine becomes more personalized.

"Genetics permeates everythingthere won't be enough genetic counselors to see every patient who gets genetic information," said Mary Freivogel, president of the National Society of Genetic Counselors (NSGC).

As a result, the Bureau of Labor Statistics projects the occupation will grow by 29 percent through 2024, faster than the average for all occupations

"I think [a genetic counselor] will become a key member of the team, discussing with patients and families what to do next, how to figure out how the genome is going to interact with your lifestyle and make decisions about what you want to do medically," said Dr. David Feinberg, president and CEO of Geisinger Health System.

Genetic counselors typically receive a bachelor's degree in biology, social science or a related field, and then go on to receive specialized training. Master's degrees in genetic counseling are offered by programs accredited by the Accreditation Council for Genetic Counseling, offered at some 30 schools in the U.S. and Canada, according to the NSGC.

Those who want to be certified as genetic counselors must obtain a master's degree from an accredited program, but do not need to be doctors.

The NSGC is also working to recruit new talent by doing outreach in middle and high schools to let younger students know the field is an option in the future. Pay is competitive as wellon average, counselors make around $80,000 a year, but that can increase up to $250,000 annually depending on specialty, location and expertise, Freivogel said.

Health insurance often pays for genetic counseling, and for genetic testing when recommended by a counselor or doctor. However, it's important to check with insurers before scheduling any tests as coverage levels vary. Cost also varies greatly, for example, as multi-gene cancer panels can range from $300 to $4,000 depending on the type of test, the lab used and whether the patient goes through his or her insurance or pays out of pocket.

And while at-home tests like 23andMe are typically less expensive, those taking them still need to see a genetic counselor to explain their results.

Part of the reason more counselors will be needed in the future at Geisinger is because the health system is home to the MyCode Community Health Initiative, one of the largest biobanks of human DNA samples of its kind, according to Amy Sturm, director of Cardiovascular Genomic Counseling at Geisinger. The project has consent from more than 150,000 patients to participate in having their entire DNA code sequenced and synced with their electronic medical records, to look for new causes of disease and different ways to treat conditions.

"We are figuring out and researching the best way to deliver this information back to our patients and also back to families with the ultimate goal of preventing disease and improving the healthcare system," Sturm said.

Keeping up with the latest in genomics, where new developments happen almost daily, can be a challenge. Yet counselors like McMinn say the ability to impact more than just the patient by studying the genome makes the job well worth it.

"We are able to bring to the forefront the fact that we're not just taking care of the patient, but we're taking care of the entire family," McMinn said.

More here:
Genetic counseling field to rapidly expand - CNBC

Genes carry the information that make you you. So it's fitting that, when sequenced and stored in a computer, your genome takes up gobs of memoryup to 150 gigabytes. Multiply that across all the people who have gotten sequenced, and you're looking at some serious storage issues. If that's not enough, mining those genomes for useful insight means comparing them all to each other, to medical histories, and to the millions of scientific papers about genetics.

Sorting all that out is a perfect task for artificial intelligence. And plenty of AI startups have bent their efforts in that direction. On August 3, sequencing company Veritas Genetics bought one of the most influential: seven-year old Curoverse. Veritas thinks AI will help interpret the genetic risk of certain diseases and scour the ever-growing databases of genomic, medical, and scientific research. In a step forward, the company also hopes to use things like natural language processing and deep learning to help customers query their genetic data on demand.

It's not totally surprising that Veritas bought up Curoverse. Both companies spun out of George Church's prolific Harvard lab. Several years ago, Church started something called the Personal Genomics Project, with the goal of sequencing 100,000 human genomesand linking each one to participants' health information. Veritas' founders helped lead the sequencing partstarting as a prenatal testing service and launching a $1,000 full genome product in 2015while Curoverse worked on academic strategies to store and sort through all the data.

But more broadly, genomics and AI practically call out for one another. As a raw data format, a single person's genome takes up about 150 gigabytes. How!?! OK so, yes, storing a single base pair only takes up around two bits. Multiply that by roughly 3 billionthe total number of base pairs in your 23 chromosome pairsand you wind up with around 750 megabytes. But genetic sequencing isn't perfect. Mirza Cifric, Veritas Genetics cofounder and CEO, says his company reads each part of the genome at least 30 times in order to make sure their results are statistically significant. "And you gotta keep all that data, so you can refer back to it over time," says Cifric.

That's just storage. "Everything after that is going to specific areas and asking questions: Theres a variant at this location, a substitution of this base, a deletion here, or multiple copies of this same gene here, here, and here," says Cifric. Now, interpret all that. Oh, and do it across a thousand, hundred thousand, or million genomes. Querying all those genetic variations is how scientists get leads to find new drugs, or figure out how existing drugs work differently on different people.

But cross-referencing all those genomes is just the beginning. Curoverse, which was focusing on projects to store and sort genomic data, also has its work cut out for it in searching through the 6 millionand countingjargon-filled academic papers detailing gene behavior, including visual information found in charts, graphs, and illustrations.

That's pretty ambitious. Natural language processing is one of the stickiest problems in AI. "Look, I am a computer scientist, I love AI and machine learning, and no amount of coding makes sense to solve this," says Atul Butte, the director of UCSF's Institute of Computational Health Sciences. At his former job at Stanford University, Butte actually tried to do the same thinguse AI to dig through genetics research. He says in the end, it was way cheaper to hire people to read the papers and input the findings into his database manually.

But hey, never say never, right? However they accomplish it, Veritas wants to move past what companies like 23andMe and Color offer: genetic risk based on single-variant diseases. Some of America's biggest dangers come from diseases like diabetes and heart disease, which are activated by interactions between multiple genesin addition to environmental factors like diet and exercise. With AI, Cifric believes Veritas will be able to not only dig up these various genetic contributors, but also assign each a statistical score showing how much it contributes to the overall risk.

Again, Butte hates to be a spoilsport, but ... there's all sorts of problems with doing predictive diagnostics with genetic data. He points to a 2013 study that used polygenic testing to predict heart disease using the Framingham Heart Study dataabout as good as you can get, when it comes to health data and heart disease. "They authors showed that yes, given polygenic risk score, and blood levels, and lipid levels, and family history, you can predict within 10 years if someone will develop heart disease," says Butte. "But doctors could do the same thing without using the genome!"

He says the problems come down to just how messy it is trying to square up all the different research on each gene alongside the environmental risks, and all the other compounding factors that come up when you try to peer into the future. "Its been the holy grail for a long time, structured genome reporting," says Butte. Even attempts to get researchers to write and report data in a standard, machine-readable way, have fallen flat. "You get into questions that never go away. One researcher defines autism different from another one, or high blood pressure, or any number of things," he says.

Butte isn't a total naysayer. He says partnerships like the one between Veritas and Curoverse are becoming more commonlike the data processing deal between genetic sequencing giant Illumina and IBM Watsonbecause there's a clear need for new computing methods in this area. "You want to get to a point where you are developing stuff that improves clinical care," he says.

Or how about directly to the owners of the genomes? Cifric hopes the merger will improve the consumer experience of using genetic data, even seamlessly integrating it into daily life. For instance, linking your genome and health records to your digital assistant. Alexa, should I eat this last piece of pizza? Maybe you should skip it, depending on your baseline genetic risk for cholesterol and latest blood test results. Diet isn't the only area where genomics could help improve your day to day life. Some people are more or less sensitive to over the counter drugs. A quick query might tell you whether you should take a little less Tylenol than is recommended.

Cifric thinks this acquisition could position Veritas as a global powerhouse of genomic data. "Apple recently announced that they had shipped 41 million iPhones in a quarter, right? I think in not too distant future, well be doing 41 million genomes in a quarter," he says. That might seem ambitious, given that the cost to consumers is nearly $1,000. But that cost is bound to come down. And artificial intelligence will make paying for the genome a matter of common sense.

This story has been updated to reflect that the company is named Veritas Genetics, not Veritas Genomics.

The rest is here:
Veritas Genetics Scoops Up an AI Company to Sort Out Its DNA - WIRED