Preparing the Next Generation of Genetic Researchers

         March 25, 2014

New breakthroughs are being made every day in genomics. It’s a dynamic and fascinating industry, and with exceptional growth forecast 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 »

First Golden Helix Research Competition a Great Success!

         February 28, 2014

And the Winners Are… We recently held our first ever research competition at Golden Helix – what a success! We received over 50 submissions from more than 20 different countries. And just as the countries varied, so did the research. Abstracts involved both DNA and RNA sequencing, GWAS (nope, it’s still not dead), and copy number variation. Subjects ranged from… Read more »

The New Human Genome Reference and Clinical Grade Annotations: It’s All About the Coordinates

         February 17, 2014

On my flight back from this year’s Molecular Tri-Conference in San Francisco, I couldn’t help but ruminate over the intriguing talks, engaging round table discussions, and fabulous dinners with fellow speakers. And I kept returning to the topic of how we aggregate, share, and update data in the interest of understanding our genomes. Of course, there were many examples of… Read more »

Public Data? What’s that good for anyway?

         February 12, 2014

Dr. Bryce Christensen recently gave a webcast on Maximizing Public Data Sources for Sequencing and GWAS Studies in which he covered options for getting GWAS and sequence information online, tips for working with these datasets and what you’ll see in terms of data quality and usefulness, how to use public data sources in conjunction with your GWAS or sequence study… Read more »

Fun in the Sun – Headed to Tri-Con and AGBT next week

         February 5, 2014

Weather.com currently says it feels like -24 degrees outside (yes, that’s negative) here in Bozeman, Montana. Which is why I’m more than a little jealous of Gabe Rudy and Andreas Scherer who get to go to San Francisco and Marco Island next week, respectively, where the weather is little more… well, let’s say… reasonable. Andreas will be headed to Marco… Read more »

Turning SRA Files Into Usable BAMs and VCFs

         January 21, 2014

In our recent webcast, Advancing Agrigenomic Discoveries with Sequencing and GWAS Research, Greta Linse Peterson featured bovine data which she download from the NCBI website. The data was downloaded in SRA format and in order to analyze the data in SVS, the files had to be converted to BAMs and then merged into a single VCF file. Since many of… Read more »

Bringing Powerful Analytic Software to Ontario

         January 15, 2014

At Golden Helix our number one priority is empowering genetic researchers world-wide with software tools that are as effective as they are robust. So needless to say, we are thrilled to announce a recent collaboration with the Ontario Genomics Institute (OGI), a not-for-profit organization focused on driving and catalyzing the life sciences industry in Ontario. Through this exciting partnership, we… Read more »

Back to Basics: Importing/Exporting Data in Imputation Program Data Formats with SVS

         December 31, 2013

In a recent blog post (Comparing BEAGLE, IMPUTE2, and Minimac Imputation Methods for Accuracy, Computation Time, and Memory Usage), Autumn Laughbaum compared three imputation programs. Data can be exported from, or imported into, SVS in the standard file formats for these and other imputation programs. The goal of this blog post will be to review the different tools available to… Read more »

All I Want for Christmas Is a New File Format for Genomics

         December 16, 2013

Tis the season of quiet, productive hours. I’ve been spending a lot of mine thinking about file formats. Actually, I’ve been spending mine implementing a new one, but more on that later. File formats are amazingly important in big data science. In genomics, it is hard not to be awed by how successful the BAM file format is. I thought… Read more »

“Intriguing Findings Are for Romance Novels”

         October 29, 2013

A report from the World Congress of Psychiatric Genetics Earlier this month, while much of the genetics community was scrambling to edit and print their posters for ASHG, I had the opportunity to attend WCPG, the World Congress of Psychiatric Genetics, in Boston.  This was my second trip to WCPG and it is becoming one of my favorite events to… Read more »

ASHG is here once again!

         October 18, 2013

Hey everyone! It’s time once again for the illustrious ASHG – this year in Boston, MA. We are very excited to get to see all of our colleagues and friends and hear about what you’ve been up to. This year we will have six in-booth (#618) demonstrations by Gabe Rudy, VP of Product Development, showcasing SVS 8.0: Identifying Candidate Functional… Read more »

SVS Workflow Automation Webcast: Your Questions Answered

         September 20, 2013

Last week, we presented a webcast on Workflow Automation in SVS. If you were unable to attend, a recording of it is on our website: http://www.goldenhelix.com/Events/recordings/making-ngs-data-analysis-clinically-practical/index.html In this post I’ll respond to some of the questions we were unable to answer within the allotted time. Will you provide a link for the software used in the webcast? I used Golden… Read more »

Upcoming Webcast – Making NGS Data Analysis Clinically Practical: Repeatable and Time-Effective Workflows

         August 28, 2013

Presenter: Autumn Laughbaum, Biostatistician with introduction by Dr. Andreas Scherer, President & CEO Date: September 10, 2013 Duration: 60 Minutes Abstract Exploring next-generation sequence data requires an iterative process whereby a researcher can find a “needle in the haystack” that contributes to a particular disease or other phenotype. Once that needle has been found, a workflow can be established for… Read more »

Guest Post: Finding Rare Pieces of Hay in a Haystack

         August 19, 2013

Utilizing Identical Twins Discordant for Schizophrenia to Uncover de novo Mutations We are living in exciting times – the reality of high-resolution Cand individual genome sequencing now offers renewed hope in the search for the causes of complex diseases. When this technology is combined with genetic relationships, individual sequences add unrivaled proficiency. Our lab is located in London, Ontario, Canada… Read more »

Comparing BEAGLE, IMPUTE2, and Minimac Imputation Methods for Accuracy, Computation Time, and Memory Usage

         July 17, 2013

Genotype imputation is a common and useful practice that allows GWAS researchers to analyze untyped SNPs without the cost of genotyping millions of additional SNPs. In the Services Department at Golden Helix, we often perform imputation on client data, and we have our own software preferences for a variety of reasons. However, other imputation software packages have their own advantages… Read more »

Upcoming Webcast – Exploring DNA/RNA-Seq Analysis Results with Golden Helix GenomeBrowse and SVS

         July 12, 2013

Presenter: Dr. Bryce Christensen, Statistical Geneticist Date: July 24, 2013 Duration: 60 Minutes Abstract Golden Helix GenomeBrowse™, a free visualization tool for all types of sequence data, was introduced in 2012 to broad acclaim. Researchers using GenomeBrowse discovered a product far beyond the status quo with seamless navigation of sequence alignments and other genomic data using a fluid, fast, and… Read more »

Vanessa Hayes, PhD and Desiree Petersen, PhD Use Population Genetics to Dig into Mankind’s Roots

         June 26, 2013

Humans are said to have a 0.1% rate of diversity, seemingly small, but actually quite significant when considering the future of personalized medicine. Gaining a deeper understanding of this genetic variance can help determine susceptibility to disease as well as medicinal response and outcomes. One-third of human genetic diversity can be found in a likely contender for the birthplace of… Read more »