Genomics

Senator Mark Warner warned that China’s genomics giant BGI could surpass Huawei’s strategic impact by amassing vast DNA data worldwide, creating a “DNA arms race” with implications for surveillance, bio‑engineered soldiers and national security. He highlighted BGI’s global labs, links to the Chinese Communist Party and the PLA, and the U.S.’s slow intelligence response, urging bipartisan action such as the BIOSECURE Act. Warner also warned that China’s aggressive push in AI, quantum computing, biotech and standards‑setting threatens U.S. technological leadership and democratic values.

Google introduced DeepSomatic, an open-source AI tool using convolutional neural networks to improve the accuracy of cancer-related mutation identification in tumor genomes. Trained with the high-quality CASTLE dataset, DeepSomatic analyzes genetic variants, distinguishing clinically relevant mutations from noise. It outperforms existing methods, particularly in identifying insertions and deletions (Indels), even in challenging samples. It can also operate in “tumor-only” mode and generalizes well to new cancer types, with the goal of enabling more precise and personalized cancer treatments.