How To’s & Advanced Workflows

Customizing the ACMG Classifier

Aug 11, 2026

In our post, ACMG Guidelines for Variant Classification: 2015 to v4 – The Golden Helix Blog, we toured the ACMG classifier’s evidence sources, including the new CI-SpliceAI and Missense Pathogenicity annotations. Beyond these new computational sources, one of the biggest changes in the upcoming VarSeq release is how configurable the…

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Secondary Analysis in VSWarehouse, Part 2: Long-Read Analysis Made Simple

Aug 4, 2026

Heading Part 1 of this series covered short-read secondary analysis and the operational infrastructure VSWarehouse brings to it. Long-read sequencing changes what secondary analysis can see in the first place: a repeat expansion counted directly instead of inferred from coverage, near-identical gene copies separated by their unique flanking sequence, and…

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Long Read Part 3: Repeat Expansions

May 19, 2026

Short tandem repeats (STRs) are among the most challenging variants to characterize with traditional sequencing technologies. Many clinically significant STR expansions span hundreds or thousands of base pairs, far exceeding the read lengths of short-read platforms. As a result, countless disease-causing repeat expansions have historically gone undetected in genomic workflows,…

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Warehouse Workflow Spotlight: Part 3

Apr 14, 2026

Many labs already use DRAGEN upstream, but want more control over what happens after variant calling is complete. VSWarehouse 3 connects those outputs to downstream tertiary workflows that labs can automate, configure, and adapt to their own interpretation and reporting process. Using DRAGEN with VSWarehouse 3: A Better Path to…

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Streamlining Carrier Analysis with VSClinical

Nov 13, 2025

Carrier screening is an important component of reproductive genetic testing, helping identify individuals or couples at increased risk of passing on inherited conditions to their children. When both partners carry a pathogenic or likely pathogenic variant in the same gene associated with an autosomal recessive condition, or when a pathogenic…

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Integrating Genomenon Mastermind Curated Variants in VarSeq and VSClinical

Sep 23, 2025

When performing variant classification using VarSeq’s ACMG classifier, a large number of variants inevitably fall into the category of variants of uncertain significance (VUS). This is because much of the evidence required for confident classification cannot be programmatically evaluated. Take PS3, for example, the criterion for functional evidence. This criterion…

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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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Introducing VSWarehouse 3 Installation Cloud Servers

Sep 15, 2025

As precision medicine advances, clinicians and diagnostic labs face an ever-increasing volume of genetic data and analytical complexity. Meeting this demand requires tools that streamline data management and automate bioinformatic workflows to deliver timely, accurate diagnoses. By bringing data management, diagnostic workflow automation, and reporting into a single platform, VSWarehouse…

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Implementing Data Freedom Practices in Your Genomics Workflows

Jul 17, 2025

In the world of genomics, data ownership and portability are fundamental principles that every researcher and clinician should embrace. With the increasing complexity of genomic datasets and the critical importance of long-term data accessibility, having the ability to export your data in multiple formats is not just convenient, it’s essential.…

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Visualization With IGV

Jun 5, 2025

Modern genomics workflows often require multiple specialized tools working in concert. In the upcoming VarSeq release, we are excited to announce the option for tighter integration with IGV. Genomics researchers and clinicians are well-versed in using IGV as a visualization tool for their genomic data. This new option will allow…

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Importing External PGx Calls for Extended Gene-Drug Reporting in VarSeq

May 27, 2025

Pharmacogenomic (PGx) analysis empowers researchers and clinicians to tailor drug therapies based on a patient’s genetic profile, but not all regions of the genome are easy to interpret. Genes like CYP2D6 and HLA-A are tricky when it comes to rendering diplotype calls. This is due to a number of factors…

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Customized Auto Variant Interpretation in VarSeq

May 15, 2025

The VarSeq platform has been on the market for over a decade and has established itself as robust and powerful clinical-grade bioinformatics software. Its usage spans many types of analysis, including pharmacogenomics, rare disease, hereditary cancer, somatic, carrier risk, and trio/family. Fundamentally, users have the freedom to build any workflow…

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Sample Catalogs in VSWarehouse 3

Apr 17, 2025

Creating and managing sample manifest files in VarSeq has traditionally been a time-consuming process that demands precision and attention to detail. The upcoming VSWarehouse 3 release will feature the ability to use catalogs to save and load sample fields in VarSeq projects. Not only will this allow for easy population…

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Best Practices for Variant Annotation and Filtration – Germline Variant Analysis

Jan 14, 2025

Golden Helix field application scientists curate a set of FAS templates that capture best practices for filtering, which we use when training and onboarding customers. In addition to the basic templates that come default with the software, these more fleshed-out templates are available upon request. This first blog in the…

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Collapse Phased Variants in VarSeq

Sep 12, 2024

In a recent blog post, we explored how phased genotypes provide crucial insights by separating variants into distinct haplotypes—groups of alleles inherited together from a single parent. We also discussed how the combined impact of multiple variants within the same gene can significantly differ from their individual effects. However, accurately…

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Our New Pharmacogenomic Tutorial is Hot Off the Press!

Aug 1, 2024

Our customers asked for a step-by-step tutorial for navigating a pharmacogenomic (PGx) workflow in VarSeq, and we are happy to have it delivered! Our brand new PGx tutorial can be found on our website, along with our other VarSeq tutorials. Like our other famous tutorials, this one will provide example…

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Where Are My Structural Variant Calls? – Highlighting the Breakends Table

Jun 25, 2024

In the last year, we have seen a surge in customers moving to whole genome sequencing. Not only does whole genome sequencing provide unparalleled gene coverage compared to whole exome, but depending on the kind of sequencing, you may expect to see additional file types as well. For example, our…

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Couple Carrier Screening Tutorial and Onboarding Training Now Available!

Apr 30, 2024

We are pleased to announce new training materials are available for multi-sample workflows in VarSeq! Specifically, we have a New Carrier Screening Tutorial and New Onboarding and Training guides for Carrier Screening Analysis in VarSeq, and Clinical Evaluation and Carrier Status Reporting in VSClinical. This blog gives an overview of…

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Auto Computation of Coverage Files

Jan 18, 2024

The latest VarSeq release offers enhanced control over genome browse visualization computations. These computations, which are responsible for computing and caching coverage files that create the aggregate view of tracks within GenomeBrowse, are now more flexible. Typically, these tracks create files with the “.covtsf” extension and are used for zoomed-out…

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Evaluate the use of Evaluation Scripts in your ACMG Workflow!

Sep 5, 2023

Recently, we have written a couple of blogs that were talking about the use of Evaluation Scripts in VSClinical workflows, in particular for the AMP workflow. Evaluation scripts were first introduced to VSClinical AMP in VarSeq 2.3.0 and VarSeq 2.4.0 welcomed evaluation scripts to the ACMG classification workflow. Evaluation scripts…

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