Thank you to everyone who joined our webcast, “Whole Genome Trait Association in SVS.” If you missed the live event and are interested in knowing what we talked about, you may access the recorded event below: Our Live Q&A generated a lot of great questions. Unfortunately, we were unable to answer them all, but we have compiled some of the… Read more »
Introduction: Malignant Rhabdoid tumors (MRT) are among the most aggressive and lethal forms of infant and child cancer (1). These tumors are characterized by an unusual combination of mixed cellular elements similar to but not typical of teratomas and can originate at any anatomic location. When MRTs are present in the brain, they are called atypical teratoid/rhabdoid tumors (AT/RT), which… Read more »
As I prepared to write the Customer Publication blog this month, I was excited by the number of recently published papers that stood as examples of how both VarSeq and SVS software are employed to advance diagnostics and treatments in human medicine. We often think of SVS as the go-to platform for Agrigenomics, however both of our platforms have broad… Read more »
The University of Washington’s Combined Annotation Dependent Depletion (CADD) algorithm measures the deleteriousness of genetic variants. This includes single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNVs) and short insertions and deletions (indels) throughout the human reference genome assembly. This algorithm was introduced in 2014 and has since become one of the most widely used tools to assess human genetic variation. Since 2014, the algorithm has been… Read more »
We have had many customers come to us over the years with a simple problem: they have BAM files for whole exome or gene panel data and would like to call CNVs using VarSeq’s powerful CNV calling capabilities, but they don’t have a bed file defining the target regions for their samples. To address this problem, we have developed a… Read more »
An under-appreciated area of complexity when looking into the field of genetics from the outside can be found in genes and transcripts. Alternative splicing allows eukaryotic species to have a wonderfully powerful genetic code, resulting in multiple protein isoforms being encoded in a single section of DNA. But when it comes to variant interpretation, different transcripts can result in widely different predicted… Read more »
In VarSeq 2.2.1, you can set template annotation sources to automatically update to the latest version. Previously, VarSeq templates were frozen in time. Now, each new project created from a template would use the same source that was used when the template was created. When you save a template, you can have the sources automatically update to the latest version…. Read more »
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 »
Thank you to everyone who joined me for our latest webcast, “Next-Gen Sequencing of the SARS-CoV-2 Virus with Golden Helix.” If you missed the live event and are interested in knowing what we talked about, you may access the recorded event below: Our Live Q&A generated a lot of great questions. Unfortunately, we were unable to answer them all, but… Read more »
Next-Generation Sequencing (NGS) technology has decreased the price of nucleotide sequencing exponentially in the last 10 years. The clinical applications are broad, from diagnosis of rare diseases, to carrier screening and hereditary disease risk, and finally, for the personalized treatment of cancer with molecular profiling of tumors for therapeutic, diagnostic, and prognostic genomic biomarkers. Discovery and Sharing of the Reference Genome for SARS-CoV-2 With… Read more »
It is an honor to be published in The Journal of Precision Medicine’s March 2020 issue where I have outlined the current best practices for NGS-based cancer diagnostics. In this article, I detail: The need to standardize clinical reporting Popular annotation sources and functional prediction algorithms The AMP Guidelines and how these can be applied with Golden Helix’s Diagnostic Platform… Read more »
In trio workflows, one of the most important factors in scoring a variant is understanding how that variant is inherited from the parents. Likewise, when looking at extended families, the segregation, or presence of the variant among the affected versus unaffected individuals provides evidence for its pathogenicity for a given phenotype or disease. Given the nature of Copy Number Variants… Read more »
VarSeq 2.2.1 was released on April 1st and features an upgraded gene annotation capability with new RefSeq genes tracks and an AMP workflow addition: the Drugs and Trials tab. The new RefSeq human genome genes tracks contain updated gene names and the recognition of any MANE (Matched Annotation from NCBI and EMBL-EBI) identified transcripts. VarSeq has been updated to be… Read more »
Thank you to everyone who joined me for yesterday’s webcast, I hope you all enjoyed it. If you missed the live event and are interested in knowing what we talked about, good news, you can watch the recorded version right here! There were so many great questions asked during our Live Q&A that I was unable to answer all of… Read more »
Our Support Team curates a variety of tutorials to help orient new users to the capabilities of VarSeq. We are happy to announce the team’s new release of the trio tutorial that places emphasis on using the ACMG guidelines. This tutorial gives insight into the proper setup of pedigree structure as well as detailed descriptions of the filter containers and… Read more »
In these very uncertain times, it has been uplifting to read the wonderful work Golden Helix customers have been doing across the globe! This month, the focus of this blog is on published articles relating to congenital defects and early development. Congratulations to all our customers who have published papers and please enjoy a small sampling of their work. To… Read more »
Golden Helix ships a variety of templates that are designed to provide a starting point for users to evaluate variants in VarSeq. Naturally, as users become more familiar with the software, there is a desire and necessity to tailor the template design to accommodate a more thorough variant analysis. To add to these template customizations there are several algorithms and… Read more »
Generating a clinical report is the final step of most NGS pipelines and is important as it relays results and information to legacy systems, physicians and ultimately the patient. As reporting is a valuable process, Golden Helix offers reporting capabilities according to the ACMG and AMP guidelines but also as a standalone feature in VSReports. VSReports is a platform that… Read more »
At Golden Helix, we want our new users to hit the ground running with VarSeq and not spend oodles of time getting started building and automating their workflows. To achieve this goal, our team has generated blogs, webcasts, and tutorials that explain and demonstrate workflows that are possible with VarSeq. Each VarSeq tutorial offers step by step instruction in which… Read more »
Since the initial release of the copy number variant algorithms in VarSeq, our team has created a variety of content to help users get started with building their copy number variant projects. In our webcast library, you can find a few of our recent webcasts in 2019 covering CNV workflows and validation: Clinical Validation of Copy Number Variants Using the… Read more »
