Thank you to everyone who joined us for our webcast on the upcoming VarSeq features supporting the full spectrum of genomic variation! Traditionally, NGS cancer testing started with small gene panels that looked at a small set of the most common genes to identify small mutations, such as BRAF V600E. However, there are many classes of mutation that cannot be… Read more »
Here at Golden Helix, we would like to take a moment and highlight some of our amazing and talented women in STEM! Below are short excerpts from some of our own Golden Helix employees and their experiences both in STEM and here at Golden Helix. Rana Smalling Field Application Scientist B.S. in Biological Sciences, Ph.D. in Biochemistry My experience in STEM started in… Read more »
We are honored to be awarded and recognized in this year’s BioTech Breakthrough Awards. “Advances in biological sciences, combined with accelerating development of computing, data processing, and AI are fueling a new wave of innovation in the healthcare sector. These advances are providing new understanding, new materials, new tools, as well as lower costs. We’re seeing trends in use of… Read more »
The ACMG classification guidelines for variant pathogenicity are as ubiquitous as they are complicated to implement. They play a consistent and evolving role in the standard workflows of many experts in the next-generation sequencing field, both in the clinical and research space. Furthermore, they can be effectively applied in both somatic and germline workflows. Hence, consistent and auditable methods for… Read more »
The month of VarSeq must be October. This month we saw incredible research and clinical application being utilized with the VarSeq suite. Whole exome sequencing and variant filtering and annotation, CNV calling for oncology research, and pathogenicity classification using the ACMG guidelines. VarSeq was able to be a front-runner this month, showing the full range of capabilities. Germline RB1 Mutation… Read more »
Every month we compile customer publications that reference us, and every time I am excited to see the amazing work being done around the world. From pediatric heart conditions to rare diseases, or a Thai clinical study on dilated cardiomyopathy, it is always a pleasure to see the Golden Helix Software suite helping research and clinical genetics. Below are a… Read more »
Large genetic cohorts require substantial effort to analyze. Genetic researchers are increasingly turning to whole exome and whole genome sequencing analyses for their clinical diagnostics and research. However, with that approach comes the challenge of making sense of these massive datasets. This is especially challenging when looking for tools that can streamline variant analysis for large genetic cohorts and include… Read more »
The ability to analyze copy number variants (CNVs) is an important aspect of any clinical or research workflow. While calling CNVs can be a challenging engineering problem, we are thrilled by our capacity to detect, analyze, and catalog CNVs all in the same place with VarSeq-CNV. In this blog, we will dive into the particulars of detecting CNVs with gene… Read more »
There are a number of conferences coming up on our schedule in the next few weeks. It’s a great opportunity check out the latest developments at Golden Helix and see exciting technologies in action. These conferences are a wonderful opportunity to discuss new discoveries in genomics. We will be there with our clinical NGS analysis software, the VarSeq suite, to… Read more »
We would like to thank everyone who entered our 2022 Innovation Awards Competition. It is always a pleasure to read and learn about the various ways Golden Helix software is applied around the world as well as the amazing research that is being done. With that said, it is our pleasure to announce this year’s winners! First Place: Ammar Husami… Read more »
This past month has produced some very interesting and diverse publications, all of which are using the VarSeq suite of products for whole exome & whole genome sequencing strategies. This month had it all: investigations of an understudied population in pharmacogenomic testing, the first-ever find with implications for Maine coon cats, and a puzzling case with a unique family displaying… Read more »
Thank you to those who attended our webcast on the user perspective of our automated AMP guidelines! Furthermore, let me express our appreciation for those particularly engaged users who posed some very thoughtful questions. While we weren’t able to answer all of them live, I hope to shed some light on some pertinent details of somatic analysis here. Let’s start… Read more »
It’s everyone’s favorite time of the year; Golden Helix’s Annual T-Shirt Design Competition is starting! If you’d like to participate, simply visit goldenhelix.com/t-shirt-contest and submit a sketch of your design! Don’t forget about the sweet prizes we’re handing out for the top three designs: First Place: $300 Second Place: $200 Third Place: $100 Deadline: September 14, 2022 How It Works… Read more »
Large-scale next-generation sequencing studies are becoming increasingly popular clinical and research tools. One enduring challenge for interpretion of these large amounts of data has been predicting the functional impact of genetic variants. Access to efficient computational tools for predicting the functional impact of variants is crucial to prioritizing the most potentially relevant variants in a dataset in a time-efficient manner…. Read more »
Manually converting FASTQs to VCFs, importing these into VarSeq, and building projects from scratch is adequate when you have only a handful of cases per week. But as you start ramping up production, the key to your lab’s success quickly becomes how quickly and efficiently you can get to the reporting of your analysis. This blog will explain how you… Read more »
July brought about several customers having success with utilizing our VarSeq software. We saw publicized research regarding Axenfield-Reiger syndrome, Septo-Optic Dysplasia, and association of TGFBI variants. This range of customer usage displays the vast capabilities of VarSeq and the applications it can work with. Axenfeld-Rieger syndrome: more than meets the eye Background: Axenfeld-Rieger syndrome (ARS) is characterised by typical anterior segment… Read more »
Let’s say you are the director of a large lab, which is running tens or hundreds of standard NGS sample analyses per week. You have a number of employees with varying levels of analysis background, and you want to be sure everyone is running the analysis the same way. You are also concerned about updating catalogs that could create differences… Read more »
First, thank you to everyone who joined us for our recent webcast, Handling a Variety of CNV Caller Inputs with VarSeq. Also, we would like to thank those that Tweeted #CNVsupport @GoldenHelix or emailed us (mmarks@goldenhelix.com) to throw in their questions. This was a successful trial run, and we would like to continue engaging with our users through these outlets…. Read more »
Genomic data visualization is an extremely powerful means to help users comprehend massive amounts of sequencing data and is valuable for communicating genomic information and findings. Genome browser tools allow users to visualize aligned sequence data in BAM format, map the data to a reference assembly, view annotation tracks, genomic region tracks, export graphics for sharing, and much more. Genome… Read more »
Below is a list of highlighted peer-reviewed publications from this month. The Golden Helix team consistently enjoys seeing our software applications hard at work in the field, whether it is clinical whole-exome sequencing, targeted CNV identification, or genotype-phenotype correlations. Enjoy reading below how our suite of VarSeq, VSClinical, and VS-CNV continues to contribute to the progression of genetics research. Looking… Read more »