Ion Genomics Newsletter: May 27, 2026
Allegations of manipulated images on Thermo Fisher's website, more partnerships on genomics-based AI models, Liverpool says 'goodbye' to Mo Salah.
This story has been updated to include Natera’s announcement of a new sequencing facility.
Over the last two weeks, scientific misconduct sleuths have uncovered what appears to be systematic image manipulation in antibody validation data posted to the website of Thermo Fisher Scientific, the world’s largest supplier of instruments and reagents.
Sholto David, a UK-based researcher, found the first instance of doctored Western blots and others found many more.
“The images are 100 percent improperly edited,” David told Ion Genomics. “Some of the most obvious I’ve seen.”
That doesn’t mean the antibodies don’t work, he noted, but these images are often all a researcher has to go on when choosing which reagents to order. Thermo Fisher did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
Working on this story brought me back to my stint at Retraction Watch, where I reported on many retractions for image manipulation, as well as False Claims Act lawsuits.
Usually the stakes are lower — the professional currency of scientific publication — though millions of dollars in research grants can also be at play. Recently, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute settled a whistleblower lawsuit brought by David for $15 million, netting him a $2.6 million bounty. To see evidence of image manipulation at a company that did nearly $45 billion in revenue last year was a shock.
David told me he isn’t currently planning on launching a qui tam suit around this. Still, I will have to go back through my emails and try to find a legal expert to see if Thermo Fisher is at risk if somebody somewhere bought these antibodies with federal grant money.
The week in genomics
Insilico Medicine and a new spinout from Human Longevity will codevelop AI foundation models aimed at decoding the biology of aging.
Insilico Medicine will contribute model architecture, benchmarking, training guidelines, and computational algorithms. Human Life Foundation Models will integrate those tools with Human Longevity’s de-identified multiomic and clinical datasets.
The companies said the jointly developed models are intended to support early detection of age-related diseases, predictive health risk modeling, and the discovery of therapeutics and personalized interventions.
Parse Biosciences and Bit.bio teamed up to map transcription factors contributing to cell identity, with the goal of advancing AI models for use in drug discovery and human cell manufacturing. No financial details of the partnership were disclosed.
Guardant Shares Spiked on FDA approval of Guardant Liquid CDx
Guardant Health received FDA approval for Guardant360 Liquid CDx, a blood-based comprehensive genomic profiling test that assesses a wider genomic footprint than the company’s previously approved Guardant360 CDx.
The new test integrates genomic and epigenomic profiling from a single blood draw, providing increased sensitivity for circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) detection compared with the prior test. The seven companion diagnostic indications previously approved for Guardant360 CDx transfer to the new test under the approval.
PacBio Begins Shipping Reusable Sequencing Chips
PacBio said it has begun shipping multi-use sequencing reagents for the Revio instrument, based on the Sprq-Nx chemistry. Using these reagents, customers running more than 5,000 genomes per year can achieve a price per human genome (at 20X coverage) of less than $300, according to PacBio.
“In our beta testing, we saw consistently strong run performance,” Adam Ameur, a bioinformatician at Sweden’s Uppsala University, said in a statement. “The simple workflow, low failure rates, and substantially lower pricing with multi-use SMRT Cells make SPRQ-Nx a practical upgrade for large-scale sequencing projects.”
PacBio noted that it has also made improvements to DeepConsensus, a basecalling algorithm developed in collaboration with Google.
“The quality of genomic data is determined by the information richness of the sequencer and the refinement of the algorithms that process it,” Andrew Carroll, Product Lead for Genomics at Google Research, said in a statement. “New advances in DeepConsensus unlock even more of the exceptional quality inherent in HiFi sequencing, empowering scientists and clinicians to find new insights and resolve complex cases of rare disease.”
Natera to Build Huge Sequencing Facility
Natera said on May 21 it would build a new, dedicated sequencing facility in Texas that would give it the “largest sequencing capacity in the world.”
The expansion is driven by demand for its tests, particularly in oncology where it saw an increase in testing volume of 54 percent year over year in the first quarter of 2026.
Natera did not respond to questions about how many additional sequencing instruments it would house in the new facility.
Illumina Adds David King to Board
Illumina elected its latest slate of directors, adding David King, former CEO of Labcorp from 2007 to 2019. King “marks an important addition to Illumina’s Board as the company accelerates its clinical strategy to integrate genomics more broadly into the standard of care,” Illumina said in a statement.
Elsewhere on the Internet
Liverpool FC bid farewell to forward Mohamed Salah and left back Andy Robertson over the weekend at the close of the English Premier League season.
Seemingly able to score at will, Salah dazzled on the right wing during Liverpool’s recent golden age. I will choose to remember him as part of the three-headed-monster of Salah, Sadio Mane, and Roberto Firmino. Salah leaves with the third-most goals scored in club history and the fourth-most goals in the history of the Premier League.
Doing his damage as an attacking defender on the other side of the field, Robertson was arguably the heart and soul of the team during his prime — a tenacious player who wasn’t afraid to wind up anybody, even Lionel Messi.