Category Archives: eBooks

eBook Release: Pharmacogenetics

         February 27, 2024

Welcome to our engaging journey through the fascinating world of pharmacogenetics! In this friendly guide, we’re going to explore how our unique genetic makeup influences the way we respond to medications. It’s all about making medicine more personalized and effective for everyone. This eBook, Pharmacogenetics takes you into the world of a cutting-edge field at the intersection of genetics and… Read more »

New eBook Update: Precision Medicine – Third Edition

         January 27, 2021
Precision Medicine - Third Edition

I am pleased to share with you the official release of my updated eBook, “Precision Medicine“. Almost 2,500 years ago, Hippocrates captured one of the key principles underlying precision medicine. In the 21st century, we take an understanding of the individual characteristics of a person to a new level. By leveraging information about an individual’s genome, we are able to… Read more »

New eBook Update: Genetic Data Warehousing – Second Edition

         August 17, 2020
free ebook on genetic data warehousing

This morning I released a new version of my eBook “Genetic Data Warehousing – Second Edition.” As Next-Generation Sequencing is taking off in the clinic, it creates a significant data management issue for clinicians, scientists, and IT professionals alike. How can we retain the massive amounts of data coming out of clinical pipelines in a way that enables labs to… Read more »

Clinical Variant Analysis for Cancer eBook – Second Edition

         May 14, 2020

This morning I released a new version of my eBook “Clinical Variant Analysis for Cancer – Second Edition.” The clinical utilization of Next-Generation Sequencing data to diagnose cancer has taken off, resulting in the need to standardize the interpretation and reporting of observed genomic variations. This eBook explores the entire clinical diagnostic process. It demonstrates how Golden Helix software can support clinicians with their… Read more »

Cyber Security Strategies for NGS Testing Labs: Part IV

         February 13, 2020

Golden Helix is in a unique position to provide a secure on-premise analysis solution. This capability is based on two enablers. First, we build our software solutions from scratch and from the ground-up with the assumption that it should run on any operating system and potentially behind firewalls or even without internet access. Second, we provide these solutions on a licensing model based on training and supporting users, not… Read more »

Cyber Security Strategies for NGS Testing Labs: Part III

         February 6, 2020

There is no shortage of actors in cyberspace who can be a potential threat to an organization. The list ranges from high schoolers who want to put newly acquired skills to the test, employees or partners who have access to the company network, to professional hackers who intend to hold data hostage or plan to resell information. On the highest-end, some state-financed actors extend their… Read more »

Cyber Security Strategies for NGS Testing Labs: Part II

         January 30, 2020

Data and security breaches are a fact of life. Organizations are aware of the threats and putting their best efforts up to prevent them as much as possible. Industries across the entire spectrum have been exposed in recent years. I will go through a few examples to show how pervasive this issue has become.  Target  One prominent data breach occurred in… Read more »

Cyber Security Strategies for NGS Testing Labs: Part I

         January 23, 2020

Hospitals and testing labs are undergoing a digital transformation like any other business in our time. They deal with personal data in categories with the highest level of security requirements: personal identity and medical records. The architecture chosen to store and analyze this data is critical to provide the best protection against a data breach incident. The liability and institutional… Read more »

New eBook Release: Cyber Security Strategies for NGS Testing Labs

         January 9, 2020

I am delighted to be starting the year with releasing a new eBook, “Cyber Security Strategies for NGS Testing Labs”. The field of Precision Medicine is at the forefront of changing the face of healthcare. It changes how we diagnose patients and provides new treatment options that did not exist just a few years ago. It is data-driven by nature. As a… 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 »

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 »

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 »