Celebrating our 20th Anniversary on September 15th, we took some time to reflect on the last two decades in this industry. Two decades of learning, adaption, and growth on the business side as well as the personal side. Employees began their careers with us, made new friends and started their own families. These past 20 years are full of stories… Read more »
The Golden Helix SNP & Variation Suite (SVS) platform is a powerful and versatile set of tools and algorithms for performing genomic research. That research spans from data originating on genotype micro-arrays to next-generation sequencing. While the majority of SVS users start with genotype data on their samples, any genomic information across a cohort can be used in our various… Read more »
An Example of an Integrated Clinical Workflow for CNVs and SNVs In this blog series, I discuss the architecture of a state of the art secondary pipeline that is able to detect single nucleotide variations (SNVs) and copy number variations (CNVs) in one test leveraging next-gen sequencing. In Part I, we reviewed genetic variation in humans and looked at the key… Read more »
Examples of CNV Calling What do CNV calls actually look like? What are some of the key metrics to determine an event? Part IV of the Secondary Analysis 2.0 blog series will answer these questions by walking through some examples of how our CNV caller, VS-CNV, identifies CNVs. Golden Helix integrates multiple metrics to determine if a CNV event is… Read more »
Detection of CNVs in NGS Data Our Secondary Analysis 2.0 blog series continues with Part III: Detection of CNVs in NGS Data. We will give you an overview of some design principles of a CNV analytics framework for next-gen sequencing data. There are a number of different approaches to CNV detection. The published algorithms share common strategies to solve the… Read more »
In this blog series, I will discuss the architecture of a state of the art secondary pipeline that is able to detect single nucleotide variations (SNV) and copy number variations (CNV) in one test leveraging next-gen sequencing. In Part I, we reviewed genetic variation in humans in general and looked at the key components of a systems architecture supporting this… Read more »
Human genetic variation makes us unique. On average, humans are to 99.9% similar to each other. Understanding in detail what the nature of the difference in our genetic make-up is all about allows us to assess health risks, and eventually enables Precision Medicine as we determine treatment choices. Furthermore, it enables scientists to better understand ancient human migrations. It gives… Read more »
We are back from another exciting trip to ESHG, hosted in Copenhagen, Denmark last week. We were delighted by the number of researchers and clinicians we were able to connect with. Needless to say, the weather was outstanding in Copenhagen, which made our stay even more pleasant! Even though this was a European event, it was great to be able to speak with… Read more »
Last week was fast and furious for those of us who made it to Phoenix attending ACMG 2017. The event was exceptionally well attended, with great talks and sessions. Here are some of the highlights that are worth mentioning from our perspective. Numerous talks referenced how important the updated Exac/gnomAD database is for clinical NGS analysis. The new dataset includes… Read more »
In the past couple of weeks, the topic of the Filter and Quality fields in the popular ExAC population catalog has come up a number of times. It turns out that unlike the 1000 Genomes project, which decided to very heavily filter their variant list to only contain variants they consider high quality, ExAC chose to include more dubious variants… Read more »
This generation of scientists, clinicians and bioinformaticians have already elevated the standards for diagnosis, prediction and care, ultimately improving patient outcome for millions of people by leveraging genomic information. This trend is only going to continue. Next-gen sequencing has made its way into the clinic. Golden Helix supports the adoption of Precision Medicine by building products, such as our VarSeq… Read more »
With a properly defined wet-lab and bioinformatics process, we are able to zero in on clinically relevant variants. How does a lab report on the outcome of their analysis? We find that most laboratories conduct their variant classification based on the guidelines formulated by the American College of Medical Genetics (ACMG) for inherited diseases. The ACMG guidelines for variant classification… Read more »
The year 2017 is starting fast and furious for us here at Golden Helix. We just announced a new imputation capability for our SVS product. At the same time, members of our team are on the way to PAG in San Diego to network with our clients in the Plant and Animal community. We have a terrific plan in place… Read more »
Any validated bioinformatics pipeline must be continuously monitored. Quality management in clinical testing labs ensures that any divergence from predefined quality metrics during the analysis of clinical samples is investigated. For example: There is an insufficient number of sequence reads that passed the predefined base quality score threshold The number of variants identified in a data set may deviate substantially… Read more »
Wednesday, September 21st @ 12:00 pm EDT Every day, the trove of genomic data is growing. Clinics are sequencing targeted genes at high read depths to report out genetic tests. Research groups are adding new exomes and genomes to their disease-specific cohorts. Agricultural breeders are genotyping their herds and flocks by the thousands of thousands. The conventional attitude to big… Read more »
After the Wet Lab process has been completed, the bioinformatics analysis of the sequencing data work begins. The next three blogs will focus on three aspects of this process. The building blocks of a bioinformatics pipeline, documentation and validation (today’s topic) Quality Management Clinical Reporting The Building Blocks of an NGS PipelineThe bioinformatics process to analyze NGS data occurs in three… Read more »
We have come a long way since Next-Generation Sequencing (NGS) evolved as a set of technologies in the 1970s. The higher throughput and rapid reduction of costs associated with NGS have lead to the accelerated adoption of clinical testing that we are experiencing today. Currently, it is applied to analyze inherited diseases, tumors, hematologic malignancies and infectious diseases. It is… Read more »
The adoption of genetic services is key to our ability to provide personalized medicine in the future. The goal is to better diagnose diseases, predict their outcome, and choose the best possible care option for a patient. We still have a long way to go to achieve this goal. While there is agreement about the ultimate goal, there is still… Read more »
Every month hundreds of clinicians and researchers access the variety of free resources on the Golden Helix website. Our resource library hosts eBooks, webcasts and tutorials to keep the community apprised of new methods, informed on best practices and to help our customers get the most out of their software purchase. Here is a list of the 5 most watched webcasts… Read more »
New breakthroughs are being made every day in genomics. It’s a dynamic and fascinating industry, and with exceptional growth forecasted in the DNA sequencing market, a new generation of people are entering the field: future researchers, clinicians, counselors and doctors. This new generation will need to learn not only the science, but also understand how to process the massive amounts… Read more »
