[niekmaas]

"My hunch is that Google has a oncology/immunology platform"

As an MD, soon to have a PhD in oncology immunology, I always wonder what project Google could be working on in this area. After all they are a company and most probably try to develop products that will yield a return in the future. So why would someone chose to work for a Google firm that has no real track record in the Life Sciences versus the many life-science companies that already have amazing logistics/experience in place (Novartis, Biogen, Takeda to name just a few in Cambridge, MA). Outside "data-science" projects like genomics, or very technical project like lab-on-a-chip devices, I wouldn't see a big advantage moving to the bay area. However, I guess offering huge salaries always helps convincing people to join your company. And the winters in the Mountain View are probably warmer than the Boston area.

[noname123]

They have a collaboration with the Broad where they want to run their analysis pipeline on Google's compute cluster.

https://cloud.google.com/genomics/gatk?hl=en

They also have a project with Novartis (I think not with NIBR however) to do glucose testing via contact lenses.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/09/05/us-novartis-ceo-id...

If I have to guess, I don't think Google plan to build a HTS facility for drugs R&D or a huge lab foot-print to do wet-lab work. They probably want to leverage their existing compute/engineering infrastructure to get involved in the next phase of informatics needs in health care and life science (e.g., cloud storage and compute needs for clinical genome sequencing, analysis workflows like 23andMe for academia/industry/clinical).

[CardenB]

Keep in mind that Google is hiring some of these people to their Cambridge office. I was just there (interning) over the summer, and a PHD intern was working on a project in this area