Recent Customer Publications

         April 2, 2015

Some of our customers have recently published using our SVS and VarSeq software in their studies. We wanted to share their work and congratulate everyone on their success! Maria Skerenova at the Institute of Clinical Biochemistry and her colleagues published Genetic variants in interleukin 7 receptor α chain (IL-7Ra) are associated with multiple sclerosis risk and disability progression in Central European… Read more »

Q&A Surrounding the Molecular Sciences Made Personal Webcast

         March 26, 2015

This week, Dr. Jeffery Moore presented a webcast on the Molecular Sciences Made Personal. The webcast delved into Dr. Moore’s attempts to transform how they teach chemistry at the University of Illinois and demonstrated how he uses VarSeq with his students to examine exome data. The following are the questions asked by the attendees. Please feel free to reach out… Read more »

Our top 5 most visited blog posts

         March 24, 2015

Over the last year our blog has seen a boom in visits and of course, I became curious. What brings people to “Our 2 SNPs…”? So, I decided to take a look at the blog posts that our community find the most intriguing. Here are my findings: Comparing BEAGLE, IMPUTE2, and Minimac Imputation Methods for Accuracy, Computation Time, and Memory… Read more »

Supercentenarian Variant Annotation: Complex to Primitive

         March 19, 2015

In a previous blog post, I demonstrated using VarSeq to directly analyze the whole genomes of 17 supercentenarians. Since then, I have been working with the variant set from these long-lived genomes to prepare a public data track useful for annotation and filtering. Well, we just published the track last week, and I’m excited to share some of the details… Read more »

Question and Answers: Cancer Gene Panels Webcast

         March 17, 2015

Last week we conducted a webcast on “Cancer Gene Panels”; you can find the recording here. We had some excellent questions which we answered during the webcast and a few more that we didn’t get to in the allotted time. Please find answers to those questions here: 1. Are Cancer Gene Panels just another stepping stone on the way to… Read more »

Analyzing a Unique Family Structure in VarSeq 1.1.1

         March 12, 2015

I am constantly on the lookout for fun or interesting datasets to analyze in SVS or VarSeq and recently came across a study looking into inherited cardiac conduction disease in an extended family (Lai et al. 2013). The researchers sequenced the exomes from five family members including three affected siblings and their unaffected mother and an unaffected child of one… Read more »

Recent Customer Publications

         March 10, 2015

Several of our customers have published recently, using the SVS software and I wanted to share their work. Congrats to all! Daria Babushok and colleagues at The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia published Emergence of Clonal Hematopoiesis in the Majority of Patients with Acquired Aplastic Anemia in the Cancer Genetics Journal which used comparative whole exome sequencing to evaluate clonal hematopoiesis in acquired aplastic… Read more »

Introducing Phenotype Gene Ranking in VarSeq

         March 3, 2015

Personal genome sequencing is rapidly changing the landscape of clinical genetics. With this development also comes a new set of challenges. For example, every sequenced exome presents the clinical geneticist with thousands of variants. The job at hand is to find out which one might be responsible for the person’s illness. In order to reduce the search space, clinicians use various methods… Read more »

2nd Annual Abstract Challenge Winners

         February 26, 2015

This year’s abstract challenge was another great success. We received over 30 submissions and topics ranged from GWAS to RNA Seq to exome sequencing, and the list goes on. With so many excellent submissions this year, we chose 4 winners, with a tie for 3rd place. Dr. Sergey Kornilov Our first place winner is Dr. Sergey Kornilov, a Postdoctoral Associate… Read more »

What TriCon 2015 Foreshadows for Clinical Genomics

         February 25, 2015

I spent a very eventful week at the Molecular TriCon in downtown San Francisco, and have been pondering the very clear trends that emerged by attending the clinical and NGS focused talks. Cancer gene panels make sense economically and as “massively parallel” tests to inform therapy, but they are bound to get more complex. Liquid biopsies of circulating tumor DNA… Read more »

TriCon 2015

         February 24, 2015

TriCon 2015 was well worth the visit to San Francisco. The combination of extensive programming in conjunction with a large exhibition makes it a must-attend event for scientist and professionals in our industry and the conference seems to grow year after year.  This year, we paid a lot of attention to the Clinical Sequencing portion of the event. In this track,… Read more »

Recent Customer Success

         February 19, 2015

A few of our customers have published recently and I would like to take the time to both recognize them for their achievement and pass on their articles. Enjoy! Kazima Bulayeva at the Vavilov Institute of General Genetics and her colleagues recently published Genomic Structural variants are linked with intellectual disability in the Journal of Neural Transmission. The paper looks at mutations… Read more »

Q&A Surrounding Population-Based DNA Variant Analysis

         February 17, 2015

Last month, Dr. Bryce Christensen presented Population-Based DNA Variant Analysis via webcast. The webcast reviewed the fundamentals of population-based variant analysis and demonstrated some of the tools available in SVS for analysis of both common and rare variants such as the SKAT-O method, as well as other functions for annotation, visualization, quality control and statistical analysis of DNA sequence variants. Here… Read more »

Golden Helix and Fluxion Biosciences Join in a Global, Value-Added Reseller Agreement

         February 16, 2015

Today, Golden Helix and Fluxion Biosciences announced a collaboration in a value-added reseller relationship. The relationship will bring the VarSeq software application to Fluxion’s global client base providing them with a method to study tumor DNA in the circulation. Fluxion is proud to offer the capability as it helps move them toward their goal of offering a complete sample-to-answer workflow for… Read more »

Q&A from our December Genomic Prediction webcast

         February 12, 2015

Our Genomic Prediction webcast in December discussed using Bayes-C pi and Genomic Best Linear Unbiased Predictors (GBLUP) to predict phenotypic traits from genotypes in order to identify the plants or animals with the best breeding potential for desirable traits. The webcast generated a lot of good questions as our webcasts generally do. I decided to begin to share these Q&A… Read more »

Tri-Con 2015 – just 5 days away!

         February 10, 2015

In just 5 days, the 22nd International Molecular Medicine Tri-Conference (Tri-Con) will kick off in San Francisco. This year, Tri-Con will offer over 3,000 attendees 6 symposia, over 20 short courses, and 17 conference programs focused on drug discovery, genomics, diagnostics, and information technology surrounding, molecular medicine. Both Dr. Andreas Scherer, CEO of Golden Helix and Gabe Rudy, our Vice President of… Read more »

PreventionGenetics to Use GoldenHelix’s VarSeq for Dx Test Offering

         February 9, 2015

Today, we at Golden Helix announced our collaboration with PreventionGenetics as they prepare to implement the VarSeq software into their exome sequencing pipeline. The VarSeq software will allow PreventionGenetics to offer an exome test by dramatically speeding up the analysis process. VarSeq will narrow down sequence data into gene(s) of interest based on inheritance patterns, facilitating the identification of clinically relevant… Read more »

To Impute, or not to Impute

         February 5, 2015

Genotype imputation is a statistical technique for estimating sample genotypes at loci that were not directly assayed by sequencing or microarray experiments.  There are several reasons why you might want to use imputation in a research study.  For example: Improve call rates in GWAS by imputing sporadic missing genotypes Harmonize the data content from different GWAS genotyping platforms so that… Read more »

Our customers’ success

         February 3, 2015

With January officially in the bag, 2015 is off to a great start, especially for some of our customers who have recently published. I wanted to take a minute to share them with you. Sander van der Laan at University Medical Center Utrecht, published Variants in ALOX5, ALOX5AP and LTA4H are not associated with atherosclerotic plaque phenotypes: The Athero-Express Genomics Study which assessed the impact of common variants… Read more »