GATK is a Research Tool. Clinics Beware.

         December 3, 2012

In preparation for a webcast I’ll be giving on Wednesday on my own exome, I’ve been spending more time with variant callers and the myriad of false-positives one has to wade through to get to interesting, or potentially significant, variants. So recently, I was happy to see a message in my inbox from the 23andMe exome team saying they had… Read more »

Upcoming Webcast: 23andMe Variant Analysis of My Personal Exome

         November 28, 2012

Join me on December 5th for a one-hour webcast as I explore my personal exome provided by the Exome Pilot project of 23andMe. Exome sequencing has seen many success stories in the realm of diagnosing highly penetrant monogenic disorders as well as in informing treatment of certain cancers. As the use of exome sequencing expands to more complex polygenic disorders… Read more »

SVS 7.7 is here!

         November 19, 2012

After much anticipation, we are excited to announce that SVS 7.7 is available! It’s been a lot of work, but we are pleased with the result and know you will be too! SVS 7.7 includes: Improved RNA-Seq Analysis Package for mRNA Expression Profiling Import tabularized quantification data from the Golden Helix pipeline or other sources. Utilize DESeq to perform differential… Read more »

To Find a Killer Variant: Successes and Challenges on the Journey to Mass Adoption of NGS in the Clinic

         October 22, 2012

Recently, I have been spending some time analyzing real patient data. I’m preparing for a webcast I’ll be giving in which I will walk through the process of replicating the findings of Dr. Gholson Lyon‘s study on the novel disease diagnosis he named Ogden Syndrome. Being so close to data that comes directly from clinical settings got me thinking about… Read more »

Dr. Folefac Aminkeng Saves Time and Increases Productivity with SVS to Study the Pharmacogenomics of Adverse Drug Reactions in Cancer Therapy

         October 17, 2012

Dr. Folefac Aminkeng is a Postdoctoral Fellow at The Centre for Molecular Medicine and Therapeutics (CMMT) at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, BC, Canada. He utilizes GWAS studies to identify single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) that might be associated with serious adverse drug reactions (ADRs) in cancer therapeutics. The field of pharmacogenomics—how one’s genetic makeup affects drug response—has grown exponentially… Read more »

Upcoming Webcast – Reproducing a DNA-Seq Discovery: Finding the Causal Variant of a Novel X-Linked Disorder

         October 10, 2012

Date: Wednesday, October 24th, 12:00 pm EDT | 4:00 pm UTC Presenter: Gabe Rudy, VP of Product Development Abstract Next-generation sequencing of DNA has shown to be a successful tool to discover causal variants of rare, highly penetrant mendelian diseases. In this webinar, we will analyze clinical samples to demonstrate the bioinformatic workflows and visualization techniques used to reproduce the… Read more »

Streamlined Workflow for Identifying Candidate Functional Polymorphisms

         October 4, 2012

Since Dr. Ken Kaufman gave his webcast on Identifying Candidate Functional Polymorphisms in SVS, we’ve been working  with Dr. Kaufman to simplify and automate many of the steps in his workflow.  I touched on this in my last blog post, and I’m excited to report that with Ken’s help, we’ve been able to simplify the workflow even more. In particular… Read more »

Guest Post: Next Generation Variant Calling

         September 26, 2012

Editor’s Note by Gabe Rudy: I’ve had the chance to exchange thoughts, emails, and blog post comments for a while now with Jeff as he has written posts on NGS Leaders and engaged with me on 23andMe. He has also worked with Golden Helix software as part of Dr. Todd Lencz’s research efforts at Zucker Hillside Hospital until he recently… Read more »

Election Season: Which Exome Chip Wins?

         September 19, 2012

It has now been about a year since Illumina and Affymetrix announced their respective exome genotyping arrays.  Both products were launched with ambitious visions of how they would enable researchers to learn significantly more about the cause of human diseases. Sales of the Illumina chip exceeded expectations, and the company said that it sold enough exome chips through the first… Read more »

GenomeBrowse is here!

         September 13, 2012

Golden Helix announced it would offer a complimentary genome browser for visualizing DNA and RNA-Seq data back in October of 2011; however no release date was disclosed at that time. Well, after much blood, sweat, and tears, we are VERY excited to announce that GenomeBrowseTM is here! GenomeBrowse raises the bar on the on the experience of exploring and finding… Read more »

New Tools to Simplify the Workflow for Identifying Candidate Functional Polymorphisms in SVS

         September 5, 2012

Dr. Ken Kaufman’s extremely popular webinar inspired us to build new tools that would simplify the process of analyzing whole-exome DNA sequencing data even further.  First I’ll describe the tools showcased in the webcast.  Then I’ll detail the new tools we created to allow for a revised and simplified workflow. Subset Informative Genotypes by Category The Subset Informative Genotypes by… Read more »

Introducing GenomeBrowse: A revolutionary visual experience for genomic data

         August 29, 2012

As first announced in October 2011 and previewed in a blog post last month, Golden Helix has been hard at work for the last year developing a free genome browser called GenomeBrowseTM. We are now beyond excited to announce that GenomeBrowse will be available to the public on September 12th on our website. (Did we mention it’s free?) GenomeBrowse raises… Read more »

Peter K. Gregersen, MD Puts Analytical Power in the Hands of the Biologist with SVS

         August 21, 2012

Dr. Peter K. Gregersen, head of the Robert S. Boas Center for Genomics and Human Genetics at the Feinstein Institute for Medical Research, utilizes GWAS, targeted arrays, and sequencing technologies to identify genes associated with human autoimmune disorders. The arrival of the GWAS platform in the mid-2000’s greatly accelerated the pace of gene discovery—as well as accelerating the number of… Read more »

Learning vs. Doing (or why that Ph.D. took 10 years)

         August 15, 2012

What prevents scientists from being more productive and if we knew, could we do anything about it? I’d like to look at an often overlooked, but huge productivity inhibitor — bad multitasking. Many people put “excellent multitasker” on their resume as a badge of honor. We laud the efficiency of a good multitasker — they are rarely idle — someone… Read more »

Dr. Ken Kaufman’s Webcast on Exome Sequencing Wildly Successful

         August 9, 2012

Thank you to everyone who joined us yesterday for a webcast by Dr. Ken Kaufman of Cincinnati Children’s Hospital: “Identification of Candidate Functional Polymorphism Using Trio Family Whole Exome DNA Data.” Over 750 people registered for this event and 430 attended – a new Golden Helix record! If you missed the webcast (or would like to watch it again), the… Read more »

One Track to Rule Them All: Close but not quite from the 1000 Genomes Project

         July 31, 2012

I recently curated the latest population frequency catalog from the 1000 Genomes Project onto our annotation servers, and I had very high hopes for this track. First of all, I applaud 1000 Genomes for the amount of effort they have put in to providing the community with the largest set of high-quality whole genome controls available. My high hopes are… Read more »

Announcing Technical Support Bulletins

         July 20, 2012

Last month I was inspired to create a new way to keep our customers apprised of the latest information on Golden Helix software without cluttering inboxes and overwhelming our blog. I happened to receive a link to an article for one of Illumina’s bulletins and realized that was exactly what we needed at Golden Helix as well! On Wednesday, we… Read more »

My 23andMe Trio Exomes Arrived: Sneak Peek

         July 18, 2012

There is nothing cooler than having something arrive that you have been excitedly waiting for: last week I got an email notification that my 23andMe exome results were ready. Actually, I got 3 emails that my exome results were ready. You see, I lucked out. It all began two years ago on DNA day when Hacker News reported that 23andMe… Read more »