Category Archives: Software Update

Golden Helix is Launching VSPGx

         February 27, 2024

VSPGx is a pharmacogenomics interpretation software based on CPIC recommendations. The field of pharmacogenetics bridges genetics and pharmacology, with the aim of optimizing drug therapies for individual patients based on their unique genetic makeup. It has the potential to revolutionize healthcare by improving drug efficacy, reducing adverse reactions, and advancing the concept of personalized medicine moving away from a one… Read more »

Advanced Techniques for GenomeBrowse Customization

         January 23, 2024

Today, we will be exploring the indispensable role of GenomeBrowse in your VarSeq workflows. This blog aims to guide you through various customization options, including color preferences, filtering techniques, display modifications, numeric value plotting, and additional tips. I hope to enhance your GenomeBrowse experience and enable you to gain valuable insights into your data. Let’s jump in by talking about… Read more »

Polygenic Risk Scores Analysis in SVS 8.10 Release

         December 21, 2023

Thank you to those who attended our recent webcast on Golden Helix’s SNP & Variation Suite (SVS) and its new capability related to Polygenic Risk Scores (PRS). If you were unable to attend, a recording can be found via this link. For common diseases, PRS can provide a predictive value related to the disease risk at an individual level. By… Read more »

VarSeq 2.4.0 Has Been Released!

         May 24, 2023

Greetings VarSeq users! VarSeq 2.4.0 has officially been released. VarSeq 2.4.0 is a significant release that focuses on enhancing the VSClinical ACMG workflow by introducing new features and noteworthy improvements. The major highlights of the release are: 1. Welcoming structural variant support to the VSClinical ACMG workflow 2. ACMG workflow automation has been enhanced via the application of evaluation scripts… Read more »

ACMG STRIKES BACK

         May 4, 2023

Use the force of evaluation scripts to automate and customize your VSClinical ACMG workflow in VarSeq 2.4.0. VarSeq 2.3.0 came packed with new features! Most notably, VarSeq variant analysis expanded to support the import and annotation of structural variant files, and the AMP cancer workflow in VSClinical gained new functionality with the addition of evaluation scripts which help automate and… Read more »

Unlocking Clinical Evidence: A Deep Dive into the Supporting Data Sources of VSClinical AMP Workflow

         February 7, 2023
Unlocking Clinical Evidence: A Deep Dive into the Supporting Data Sources of VSClinical AMP Workflow Icon

Discover the innovative clinical evidence search of the VSClinical AMP workflow, where patient biomarkers and tumor types are matched to the most relevant data from top sources like CIViC, DrugBank, and Clinical Trials. One of the core features of the VSClinical AMP interpretation workflow is the ability to search third-party data sources to find clinical evidence that matches the patient’s… Read more »

A New Comprehensive Template for Somatic Variant Annotation and Filtering in VarSeq

         February 2, 2023
A New Comprehensive Template for Somatic Variant Annotation and Filtering in VarSeq icon

Revolutionize Your Somatic Variant Analysis with Our Cutting-Edge Template for Annotation and Filtering in VarSeq Golden Helix is excited to share our new Comprehensive Cancer Template for somatic variant annotation and filtering, along with the latest version of our software VarSeq 2.3.0! Our latest VarSeq update was specifically focused on getting up to speed with multiple aspects of somatic variant… Read more »

VarSeq 2.3.0: A Comprehensive Look at the Revolutionary Cancer Genomic Profiling Solution’s New Features and Advancements

         January 18, 2023

Discover the latest advancements in cancer genomic profiling with the release of VarSeq 2.3.0 We are very excited to announce the release of VarSeq 2.3.0! This release was one of the largest VarSeq releases yet, as it includes a large refactor to the VSClinical AMP cancer module. A primary motivation for the release was focused on the availability and increased… Read more »

Improve Your Research with the Latest Cancer Ontology Updates

         January 10, 2023

Learn about the latest cancer ontology software updates and how they can enhance your research and work. Cancer Ontology An important feature of the VSClinical AMP workflow is the ability to select the correct tumor type for a given evaluation. The selected tumor type is used to identify relevant clinical evidence, including drug sensitivities, resistances, and previous biomarker interpretations. This… Read more »

Large Scale PCA Analysis in SVS – Webcast Q&A Follow Up

         January 26, 2022
Large Scale PCA Analysis in SVS - Webcast Q&A Follow Up

Thank you to those who attended our recent webcast by Gabe Rudy, Large Scale PCA Analysis in SVS. For those who could not attend, you can find a link to the recording here. While this webcast discussed methods for principal components analysis (PCA) in SVS, including the new capability for performing principal components analysis on large sample sizes, it also… Read more »

SVS 8.9.1 Release

         December 28, 2021
svs 8.9.1 release

We would like to announce that a new version of SVS has been released! The headlining feature of the SVS 8.9.1 release was new functionality for Large Data Principle Component Analysis. A detailed description of this new feature can be explored in this recent blog post: Finding a Few Principal Components Quickly from Data with Thousands of Samples. However, there… Read more »

VarSeq 2.2.4 Release

         November 30, 2021
varseq2.2.4

We are very excited to announce that just last week, we released VarSeq 2.2.4! In the past few months, we have been building the excitement for the 2.2.4 version of VarSeq with several webcasts in which we describe some of the headlining features in detail such as the new support for Gene Panels and Gene Lists, PhoRank Clinical, and Customized… Read more »

VarSeq Advanced Reporting Customizations: Part 1

         November 9, 2021
BLOG-11.9.21-VarSeq-Custom-Reports-Part-1

As we move towards the end of the year, our FAS Team is excited to announce our short blog series highlighting some of the Customization Features in our up-and-coming VarSeq release! The goal of this blog series is to show examples of how generating a clinical report can be customized to accommodate a wide range of functionality. Our December webcast,… Read more »

Updates to Somatic Variant Annotation and a New Way to Evaluate Fusions in VSClinical

         September 29, 2021
ClinVar

With the release of VarSeq 2.2.4 just around the corner, I want to detail some new 2.2.4 features that will enhance somatic variant annotation and fusion analysis within VSClinical. A webcast back in July showed some of these updates in action, so if you are looking for some more content on this topic, I would highly recommend checking out the… Read more »

Updates to ClinVar Curation to Include More Pathogenic Variants

         September 14, 2021

In the September 2021 monthly update to our curated ClinVar track, we made some changes that will result in roughly another 7,000 Likely Pathogenic and Pathogenic variants being available for annotation and use in the ACMG auto-classification system.  Consensus Between Labs  ClinVar has nearly one million unique variant classification records that are curated into multiple annotation tracks used in VarSeq and VSClinical on a monthly basis. Clinical… Read more »

Leveraging expert-curated variant interpretations using VSClinical

         July 27, 2021
Clinical Genome Resource

This blog post will cover an exciting new VSClinical feature in the upcoming VarSeq release. The ACMG Previously Interpreted Variants feature allows users to integrate databases of expert-curated variant interpretations into their VSClinical workflows. These data sources store variant-level interpretation data, including the classification, associated disorders, interpretation text, and scored criteria for each variant, along with notes providing a justification… Read more »

New CNV Tools with VarSeq 2.2.2 Update

         February 16, 2021
copy number variant algorithm

Our latest release of the VarSeq software has had a major upgrade with the addition of the new CNV ACMG guidelines! Here are some recent webcasts we’ve given covering the new guideline tool: Family-Based Workflows in VarSeq and VSClinical A User’s Perspective: ACMG Guidelines for CNVs in VSClinical Not only does VarSeq 2.2.2 come with the new guideline tool, but… Read more »

Updates on Splice Site Analysis

         February 2, 2021

Our latest VarSeq release is one of the largest we’ve ever had, boasting an extensive list of new features and improvements. As part of this release, we have dramatically expanded our support for splice site analysis. This includes improvements to our novel splice site algorithm and support for splice site effect prediction along with several other small improvements. Novel Splice… Read more »