CANADIAN RESEARCHERS DECODE DNA OF BREAST CANCER TUMOR – Using the latest DNA sequencing technology and DNA samples taken from a single patient’s lobular breast cancer tumor nine years apart, a team of Canadian researchers decoded the genetic structure of the breast cancer. This is a major breakthrough as the Triangle Business Journal reports:

Scientists with the BC Cancer Agency in British Columbia unlocked all 3 billion letters in the cancerís DNA sequence and identified all of the mutations that caused the cancer to spread. Metastatic lobular breast cancer accounts for about 10 percent of all breast cancer.

Read more about the breakthrough at the Triangle Business Journal.

CONSUMER DNA TESTS DIFFER ON RESULTS – It seems the increasingly popular consumer DNA tests from Navigenics and 23andMe have some discrepancies in their results. As Bloomberg reports:

The two testers agreed only two-thirds of the time when making risk predictions for five individuals on their chances of contracting 13 diseases, including breast cancer and diabetes, Venter and three other genetic researchers said today in an opinion article in the journal Nature.

Discrepancies in the analyses arose because the companies focused on different markers when calculating the probability of a personís developing a particular illness or condition, according to the article.

In order to overcome discrepancies, J. Craig Venter, the genome pioneer, recommends that companies develop a consensus on how to undertake analyses. However, not everybody views this as realistic.

You can read the rest at Bloomberg and the opinion piece at Nature.

BIOTECH FUNDRAISING UP AMID VACCINE HYPE, CASH NEED – As a result of hype around the swine flu vaccines as well as a push by the major drugmakers to boost research, biotech fundraising is up significantly this year. Reuters reports:

Biotech firms have raised $5.7 billion through an assortment of 39 debt and share offerings, according to data from Thomson Reuters. Follow-on offerings have been the most prevalent form of fund-raising, with 29 such transactions, the data showed.

“It’s an opportunistic time to raise money — there’s a lot of attention on vaccines, cancer and emerging drugs to fill drug pipelines,” said one healthcare investment banker who declined to be named because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

Read the rest of the article at Reuters.

EUROPE’S TOP 5 BIOTECH HOTSPOTS – In an investigation into the biotech development scene in Europe, FierceBiotech reports on the countries that have developed the best programs to support innovation and drug discovery with the UK, Norway, Sweden, Germany, and the Czech Republic coming out on top.

Read FierceBiotech’s report.