Best Practices in Genetic Analysis

New in VarSeq 3.0: Location Mapped Breakend Assessment Catalogs

Oct 8, 2025

Breakends (BNDs) represent the precise genomic coordinates where DNA is rearranged in structural variants such as translocations, inversions, and complex rearrangements. Analyzing breakends in NGS analysis is important because they capture the exact “breakpoints” of structural alterations, enabling accurate identification of gene fusions, large deletions, or other events that can…

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Reporting Short Tandem Repeats in VarSeq

Sep 30, 2025

Short Tandem Repeats (STRs) are increasingly recognized as clinically important genetic variants, contributing to a wide range of rare inherited disorders. Historically, the analysis and clinical reporting of STRs have been challenging due to limitations in both sequencing technologies and interpretation frameworks. With the advent of long-read sequencing technologies and…

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Using VSPipeline to Automate Tertiary Analysis in VSWarehouse

Sep 17, 2025

In this blog post, I’ll highlight the benefits of using VSPipeline to automate tertiary analysis in VSWarehouse. Users can now run VSPipeline project creation as a standalone task or a final step in a bioinformatic workflow without writing code. Simply use one of our shipped VarSeq projects or create your…

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Improving the Quality of CNV Analysis in VarSeq

Aug 13, 2025

High-quality copy number variant (CNV) analysis begins with a well-designed assay and optimized sequencing workflow. Foundational quality measures deployed in VarSeq include building an appropriate reference set for coverage normalization, ensuring sufficient sequencing depth, and maintaining consistency in both the sequencing platform and library preparation methods. These steps help ensure…

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5 Things I Wish I Knew When Getting Started With VarSeq

Aug 7, 2025

As a new member of Golden Helix’s Field Application Services team, I’ve recently been diving into the capabilities of VarSeq and our broader software suite – an experience every new VarSeq user goes through. If I could schedule a training call with my former self, there are some key points…

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Efficient Quality Control tools for an automated VarSeq pipeline

Oct 29, 2024

Optimizing sample throughput while maintaining quality control is, arguably, the crux of any profitable lab performing a high volume of analysis. We’ve discussed in great detail the flexibility of VSPipeline, our command line automation tool, as well as our full-stack FASTQ to report automation capabilities, and today I’d like to…

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GnomAD 4.1 Released: Improved Allele Frequency Data for VarSeq Users

Oct 22, 2024

We’re excited to announce the release of gnomAD 4.1 variant frequencies as an annotation track in VarSeq. This latest release addresses key issues from previous versions and introduces joint variant frequencies curated directly from gnomAD. Additionally, we’ve refined our liftover process, offering more accurate GRCh37 tracks. By incorporating this data…

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Flexible Biomarker Reporting Capabilities with VarSeq: Somatic Interpretation Made Easy!

Oct 15, 2024

Reporting on Cancer Biomarkers may seem like a daunting task, both in determining the scope of what a biomarker can encompass and which information to include. Biomarkers can come in the form of small variants (SNPs and INDELs), copy number variants, and structural variants. Biomarkers can also be sourced from…

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Compound Heterozygosity Between Variant Classes

Oct 4, 2024

Compound heterozygosity describes the relationship between two alternate alleles when they are located within the same gene but at different loci within that gene. Compound heterozygosity is particularly relevant in a recessive disorder when the presence of these alleles in combination confers an increased risk of disease, similar to a…

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What’s Wrong with My Computer? The Value of a Self-Diagnostics Test

Aug 13, 2024

Periodically, our FAS team will see a situation where a customer has installed VarSeq on a new machine…but something is not entirely right. Perhaps a VCF will not load, annotations cannot download, or a long-running process like coverage regions will not complete. Any of these issues alone can be tricky…

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Including QC Metrics in Report Templates

Apr 2, 2024

Our customers often ask if they can include quality control metrics in their final reports. While which metrics you actually need to report may be unique to your lab, there are a variety of metrics that we can immediately render into a report, and even more that can be rendered…

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Five Ways to Optimize Workflows with VarSeq

Mar 7, 2024

There are many ways to optimize an individual workflow, from increasing the granularity of a filter chain to automating certain multi-stepped tasks. Although the best way to optimize an individual workflow is to book a session with our FAS team to talk about your unique use case, we wanted to…

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Incorporating gnomAD V4 into the ACMG Auto-Classifier

Feb 14, 2024

We at Golden Helix are thrilled with our recent release of gnomAD v4! The curation of this massive database was a huge undertaking for our development team, but with the addition of new features, we believe it was well worth the wait. This annotation track contains allele frequencies from a…

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GnomAD v4 Released: Enhanced Data and Golden Helix Curation for VarSeq Users

Feb 7, 2024

The Broad Institute’s release of gnomAD v4 needs no introduction as the data in this release is highly sought after by professionals in the genetics community, and the v4 release has a lot to boast about! The v4 release is roughly five times larger than the v2 and v3 releases…

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Advanced Techniques for GenomeBrowse Customization

Jan 23, 2024

Today, we will be exploring the indispensable role of GenomeBrowse in your VarSeq workflows. This blog aims to guide you through various customization options, including color preferences, filtering techniques, display modifications, numeric value plotting, and additional tips. I hope to enhance your GenomeBrowse experience and enable you to gain valuable…

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Food Allergy Alleles, Right in Time for Thanksgiving!

Nov 21, 2023

The table is set, the football game is on in the background, and the family has gathered around the table when out of nowhere, your Cousin Eddie shows up for Thanksgiving dinner. While Cousin Eddie is known for eating anything, his allergies always get the best of him, ruining the…

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Evaluating DeepMind’s AlphaMissense Classifier

Oct 20, 2023

Last month, the researchers at Google DeepMind announced the release of AlphaMissense, a new missense prediction algorithm that leverages the protein structure prediction model AlphaFold to distinguish between benign and pathogenic missense variants (Cheng et al., 2023).  AlphaFold is a model for the prediction of protein structures from amino acid…

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Choosing Bin Sizes for the VarSeq CNV Binned Caller

Sep 14, 2023

Detecting CNVs from whole genome data has a number of advantages but also unique challenges. Whole genomes offer a comprehensive and uniform picture of the entire genome, allowing a user to capture CNVs at a higher resolution than with data sequenced at a lesser scale. It also allows for the…

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Get More Out of Assessment Catalogs by Storing and Tracking Variant Artifacts

Aug 8, 2023

Assessment catalogs are a way for VarSeq users to save variants and variant information for clinically relevant variants, so when you come across this variant again in another sample, all of the work to analyze and classify the variant is already done! But there is more than meets to the…

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Using Evaluation Scripts to Automatically Incorporate Secondary Evidence into Your AMP Workflow

Jun 15, 2023

The AMP guidelines workflow in VSClinical provides a user-friendly tool for the interpretation of somatic biomarkers across the entire spectrum of genomic variation. One of the most useful features of this workflow is its ability to streamline the evaluation of clinical evidence for a somatic biomarker using the AMP Tier…

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