New Tutorial: VSWarehouse

         April 27, 2017
cancer gene panel tutorial

The new VSWarehouse Tutorial covers the basic VSWarehouse workflow.This tutorial focuses on connecting to a VSWarehouse instance from VarSeq, adding an existing VSWarehouse project as an annotation source and using reports and assessment catalogs hosted on VSWarehouse. This workflow requires an active VarSeq license with the VSWarehouse feature included. You can go to Discover VarSeq or email [email protected] to request an… Read more »

Recent Publications from SVS Users

         April 25, 2017
customer

We had lots of customers publish their work using our SVS software, and I wanted to share their work with you. Congrats to all! Here are some of the highlights: Francesca Fernandez of the University of Wollongong along with colleagues published Effects of common GRM5 genetic variants on cognition, hippocampal volume and mGluR5 protein levels in schizophrenia in Brain Imaging and… Read more »

CNV User Perspective Webcast Q&A

         April 20, 2017
CNV User

Nathan Fortier’s webcast yesterday, CNV Analysis in VarSeq – A User’s Perspective, was an excellent demonstration of our CNV capabilites, so check it out if you missed it. There were a number of questions asked in the live event, so in today’s blog post I wanted to recap the Q&A session. Question: Do the reference samples have to be from the same… Read more »

By Popular Request: Our BEAGLE Algorithm Gains Support for Family Structure

         April 13, 2017
family structure

Earlier this year we released our own optimized and integrated BEAGLE implementation for SVS based on the BEAGLE 4.1 and optionally 4.0 algorithms. One of the commonly requested features since that released was to expand the algorithm implementation to be considerate of the parent-offspring relationship between samples to inform and improve the accuracy of the haplotype phasing.  With this information,… Read more »

Springtime for SVS: Updates to PhoRank, Platform Support and Genotype Imputation

         April 11, 2017
VarSeq Updated

Recently, we added a natively supported Genotype Phasing and Imputation capability in SNP & Variation Suite 8.7.0. Since then we have had fantastic feedback and adoption as folks take advantage of the BEAGLE 4.0 and 4.1 algorithms from within their existing SNP GWAS and agrigenomic workflows. One piece of feedback we heard from our time at PAG, ACMG and our… Read more »

CNV Analysis in VarSeq – A User’s Perspective

         April 6, 2017
User's Perspective

We are pleased to announce our next webcast, CNV Analysis in VarSeq – A User’s Perspective. The live event is is scheduled for Wednesday, April 19th at noon EST. Here are the specifics: Wednesday, April 19th 12:00 pm EST Clinical labs must have the ability to go from a collection of samples to a professional report documenting a short list… Read more »

Updating VarSeq’s Transcript Annotation along with NCBI RefSeq Genes Interim Release

         March 30, 2017
transcription annotation

It may be possible to say that annotating a variant correctly and accurately against gene transcripts is the most important job of a variant annotation and interpretation tool. We take it very seriously at Golden Helix as we support VarSeq and its use by our customers in both research and clinical contexts. It has been a source of frustration that… Read more »

Final thoughts on ACMG 2017

         March 28, 2017
ACMG 2017

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 »

WES Research at Stanford University

         March 23, 2017

Join our upcoming webcast : Wednesday, April 5th 12:00 pm EST Dr. Reza Sailani is a Research Fellow in the Genetics department at Stanford University. To provide an overview of his research, Sailani will present on the following two recent studies he has conducted: Association of AHSG with alopecia and mental retardation (APMR) syndrome: Alopecia with mental retardation syndrome (APMR) is… Read more »

PreventionGenetics adopts Golden Helix CNV analysis

         March 21, 2017
Partnership with Sentieon

Today, I am happy to announce the introduction of VS-CNV for Gene Panels and Exomes. We have developed this capability in partnership with PreventionGenetics. PreventionGenetics will use VarSeq CNV for analysis of gene panels, and in the future for exome sequencing. The software gives PreventionGenetics the opportunity to conduct a comprehensive CNV analysis on NGS data, in many cases eliminating the need… Read more »

We’re heading to Phoenix for ACMG 2017

         March 16, 2017
ACMG 2017

ACMG 2017 is just around the corner! We are halfway through March already and it’s just about time to head off to sunny and warm Phoenix, Arizona. While the temps have been mostly mild for the last few weeks in Montana, I bet those of you in the northeast are looking forward to your time in Phoenix! You will find… Read more »

Coming Soon! The genome Aggregation Database (gnomAD)

         March 15, 2017
VarSeq Updated

Ever since the MacArther Lab announced the new gnomAD browser at last year’s ASHG conference, we have had many requests from our customers to make this new variant frequency source available within both VarSeq and SVS. This new dataset includes variants obtained from 123,136 exome sequences and 15,496 whole-genome sequences. In comparison to the original ExAC dataset which contained exomes… Read more »

Paying Attention to the Quality Fields in ExAC: A Case Study

         March 7, 2017

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 »

Golden Helix Among Top Biotech Solutions

         February 28, 2017
top biotech solutions

CIO Review recently published its annual Biotech Technology Special Edition announcing the 20 most promising biotech technology solution providers. It is a great honor that Golden Helix has been named among the top 20 for the second year in a row! Please find my interview with the editor here: Spearheading Innovation in the Biotech Industry  We are very thankful for the hundreds of organizations and… Read more »

4th Annual Abstract Challenge Winners

         February 23, 2017
4th Annual Abstract Challenge

This year’s annual Abstract Challenge was once again a successful event. We want to thank all that participated. This year we had nearly 50 submissions and our decision was a difficult one. Here are the selected winners. This year, we had dual first place winners; Reza Sailani and Jingga Inlora of the Michael Snyder lab in the Department of Genetics at… Read more »

Calling Large LOH and CNV Events with NGS Exomes

         February 22, 2017
User's Perspective

We are pleased to announce our next webcast, Calling Large LOH and CNV Events with NGS Exomes. The live event is scheduled for Wednesday, March 8th at noon EST. Here are the specifics: Wednesday, March 8th 12:00 pm EST Next Generation Sequencing Exomes are a powerful assay used in both clinical and research settings to discover novel and rare small variants…. Read more »

A Year of Achievements

         February 21, 2017
published

In the last year, Golden Helix has received several honors. We attribute these great achievements to our customers and the community. As we strive to provide the best analytics software available for both researchers and clinicians, the continued support, praise and referrals are monumental in our success. Pharma Tech Outlook selected Golden Helix as one of the top 10 Pharma… Read more »

NGS-Based Clinical Testing eBook

         February 16, 2017

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 »

Adding RSIDs to your SVS marker mapped spreadsheet

         February 14, 2017
VarSeq Updated

In the new Genotype Imputation tool that is coming soon to SVS, allele encoding is an important part of matching data between the target and the reference panels. If the same platform provider is being used, then A/B encoding can be used. However, it’s better to use the Reference/Alternate allele encoding associated with AGCT format to ensure accuracy. If an… Read more »