The Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard is perhaps best known for the trailblazing work coming out of the labs of its core members; CRISPR tools like David Liu’s prime and base editors, Feng Zhang’s virus-like drug delivery particles, or Pardis Sabeti’s network of low-cost diagnostics designed to catch the next pandemic before it starts. But the largest of the institute’s operations isn’t a lab at all.
Structured more like a commercial technology company, the Broad’s Data Science Platform, or DSP, is home to some 250 employees, mostly software engineers, who build tools for doing biology in the age of big data. But employees there are nervous about their future after five top leaders departed or were reassigned in recent weeks, after the Broad learned of the loss of a key corporate partner.
Microsoft, which is one of the country’s leading cloud vendors with Microsoft Azure, will not be renewing a partnership that has brought the Broad roughly $15 million annually when the current phase of the collaboration concludes at the end of this year. The news came as a surprise to the DSP ranks when it was announced by Broad director Todd Golub at an all-hands meeting on June 18, according to two former employees with knowledge of the matter. They spoke with STAT on the condition of anonymity, for fear of professional retaliation.
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