Author Archives: Andreas Scherer

About Andreas Scherer

Dr. Andreas Scherer is CEO of Golden Helix. The company has been delivering industry leading bioinformatics solutions for the advancement of life science research and translational medicine for over a decade. Its innovative technologies and analytic services empower scientists and healthcare professionals at all levels to derive meaning from the rapidly increasing volumes of genomic data produced from next-generation sequencing. With its solutions, hundreds of the world’s hospitals and testing labs are able to harness the full potential of genomics to identify the cause of disease, develop genomic diagnostics, and advance the quest for personalized medicine. Golden Helix products and services have been cited in thousands of peer-reviewed publications. Golden Helix is also on the Inc 5000 list of the fastest-growing private companies in the US. He is also Managing Partner of Salto Partners, Inc, a management consulting firm headquartered in Nevada.  He has extensive experience successfully managing growth as well as orchestrating complex turnaround situations. His company, Salto Partners, advises on business strategy, financing, sales, and operations. Clients are operating in the high-tech and life sciences space. Dr. Scherer holds a Ph.D. in computer science from the University of Hagen, Germany, and a Master of Computer Science from the University of Dortmund, Germany. He is author and co- author of over 20 international publications and has written books on project management, the Internet, and artificial intelligence. His latest book, “Be Fast Or Be Gone”, is a prizewinner in the 2012 Eric Hoffer Book Awards competition, and has been named a finalist in the 2012 Next Generation Indie Book Awards! 

  

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 »

GWAS 3.0

         February 7, 2017
GWAS eBook

Genome-wide association study (GWAS) technology has been a primary method for identifying the genes responsible for diseases and other traits for the past ten years. GWAS continues to be highly relevant as a scientific method. Over 2000 human GWAS reports now appear in scientific journals. In fact, we see its adoption increasing beyond the human-centric research into the world of… Read more »

NGS-Based Clinical Testing: Part VI

         January 26, 2017
reporting incidental genetic findings

With a properly defined wet-lab and bioinformatics process, we are able to zero in on clinically relevant variants. How does a lab report on the outcome of their analysis? We find that most laboratories conduct their variant classification based on the guidelines formulated by the American College of Medical Genetics (ACMG) for inherited diseases. The ACMG guidelines for variant classification… Read more »

What to expect from Golden Helix in 2017

         January 17, 2017

The year 2017 is starting fast and furious for us here at Golden Helix. We just announced a new imputation capability for our SVS product. At the same time, members of our team are on the way to PAG in San Diego to network with our clients in the Plant and Animal community. We have a terrific plan in place… Read more »

Call for abstracts!

         December 13, 2016
Call for Abstracts

It is time to kick off our fourth annual abstract challenge! Our mission at Golden Helix is to enable Precision Medicine. We accomplish this by creating powerful software that enables both researchers and clinicians to complete complex analysis. This competition allows us to enable discovery by awarding software to those making an impact in the field. The competition has been… Read more »

Final thoughts on ASHG 2016

         October 25, 2016
Customer Success

ASHG 2016 is in our rear mirror. Again, it was bigger and better than the previous year. The conference hosted over 9,000 visitors from 66 countries. This gave the event a level of vibrancy that was evenly matched by the wonderful ambiance of the city of Vancouver. Nestled in between the two conference centers was a little pier offering spectacular… Read more »

Genomic eBooks Series reached 10k Downloads!

         September 21, 2016
10 k Downloads

Today we reached an important milestone. We have registered over 10,000 confirmed eBook downloads. Of course we are thrilled! Over the years, we aimed to contribute relevant content to the community. For some time, we have blogged and conducted webinars on the latest technology, methods and best practices. Our eBooks were the latest addition to this mix. We received a… Read more »

NGS-Based Clinical Testing: Part V

         September 20, 2016
Quality Managment

Any validated bioinformatics pipeline must be continuously monitored. Quality management in clinical testing labs ensures that any divergence from predefined quality metrics during the analysis of clinical samples is investigated. For example: There is an insufficient number of sequence reads that passed the predefined base quality score threshold The number of variants identified in a data set may deviate substantially… Read more »

NGS-Based Clinical Testing: Part IV

         September 6, 2016
clinical testing

After the Wet Lab process has been completed, the bioinformatics analysis of the sequencing data work begins. The next three blogs will focus on three aspects of this process. The building blocks of a bioinformatics pipeline, documentation and validation (today’s topic) Quality Management Clinical Reporting The Building Blocks of an NGS PipelineThe bioinformatics process to analyze NGS data occurs in three… Read more »

NGS-Based Clinical Testing: Part III

         September 1, 2016
DNA sequencing

Getting the NGS wet bench process right is not a small undertaking. Targeted NGS assays such as multigene panels or exome sequencing allow for the targeted analysis of genomic regions that are of particular interest. For every sample type, e.g. blood, formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded specimens, saliva etc, there must be a detailed protocol in place outlining how each sample type is going… Read more »

NGS-Based Clinical Testing: Part II

         August 25, 2016
ngs-based clinical testing

We have come a long way since Next-Generation Sequencing (NGS) evolved as a set of technologies in the 1970s. The higher throughput and rapid reduction of costs associated with NGS have lead to the accelerated adoption of clinical testing that we are experiencing today. Currently, it is applied to analyze inherited diseases, tumors, hematologic malignancies and infectious diseases. It is… Read more »

NGS-Based Clinical Testing: Part I

         August 16, 2016
NGS Testing

The adoption of genetic services is key to our ability to provide personalized medicine in the future. The goal is to better diagnose diseases, predict their outcome, and choose the best possible care option for a patient. We still have a long way to go to achieve this goal. While there is agreement about the ultimate goal, there is still… Read more »

Launch of the Golden Helix eCommerce Store

         June 16, 2016
Golden Helix eCommerce

Today, we launched our eCommerce Store. With this capability we respond to our customers requesting a simplified way to conduct business with us. Here is the background on this latest development. As we continue to grow in the genomics space, the needs of our clients fall really into two categories. On one hand, there are clients who want convenient access to our… Read more »

Advances in Medical Genetics Seminar and Workshop

         May 10, 2016
Advances in Medical Genetics Seminar and workshop

Last week, I attended the Advances in Medical Genetics conference in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. I was asked to present on “Big Data in DNA Analytics”. The event was hosted by Prof. Dr. Majid Alfadhel of the King Saud Bin Abdulaziz University for Health Sciences in collaboration with the Postgraduate Training Center. The event was held to discuss the pros and cons surrounding the… Read more »

Teaching Bioinformatics Concepts & Practical Skills

         April 19, 2016
Teaching Bioinformatics

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

Golden Helix reached the 1,000 citations mark!

         March 22, 2016

Customer success is very important to us at Golden Helix. Every month we showcase their success by putting together a blog post highlighting the most recent publications. We have been compiling this list since 2003 (you can find the full list here). Today, I am very honored to announce that the Golden Helix software has assisted in one thousand publications. We have enjoyed… Read more »

Cancer eBook – 2nd Edition

         March 10, 2016

In 1914, the German cytologist Theodor Boveri coined the phrase “Cancer is a disease of the genome”. At this time, his ideas were as equally revolutionary as they were highly contested. Fast forward. More than a hundred years later, Next-Generation Sequencing effectively permits a highly sensitive analysis of cancer cells. It can help us to understand mutations associated with cancer… Read more »

3rd Annual Abstract Challenge Winners!

         February 25, 2016

Thank you to all who submitted an abstract in the 2016 Abstract Challenge, it was a great success! With more than 30 submissions and a wide variety of topics, selecting only 3 winners very difficult! With that being said, here are the top 3 winners for this year’s Abstract Challenge: Our 1st place winner is Dr. Folefac Aminkeng, Postdoctoral Fellow… Read more »

Genetic Data Warehousing e-Book

         February 10, 2016
Genetic Data Warehouse

Genetic Data Warehousing e-Book In our webcast last week, we announced the upcoming release of VSWarehouse, a scalable genetic data warehouse for VarSeq. Genetic data warehousing becomes more important as Next-Generation Sequencing is taking off in the clinic, creating significant data management issues for clinicians, scientists and IT professionals alike. How can we retain the massive amounts of data coming out… Read more »