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 »
*The following text is only a preview of our new eBook “Genetic Analysis of the COVID-19 Virus and Other Pathogens”. Request a free copy to access the full version.* Next-Gen Sequencing (NGS) of the novel virus can make a tremendous contribution in enhancing our understanding of the underlying pathways in which it impacts humans. In a short period of time… Read more »
We are honored to be recognized in this year’s 2020 Biotechnology Awards by GHP Magazine – thank you! Find the full list of winners here. “Covering a variety of verticals, including bio agriculture, bio services, bio industrial and biopharmaceutical, the biotechnology market are under the microscope in Global Health & Pharma’s Biotechnology Awards. Boasting impressive market value growth with no… Read more »
*The following text is only a preview of our new eBook “Genetic Analysis of the COVID-19 Virus and Other Pathogens”. Request a free copy to access the full version.* SARS-CoV-2 has just been recently discovered. The knowledge about this virus is fairly new and certain aspects of it are still under review or in-flux entirely as we learn more about… Read more »
*The following text is only a preview of our new eBook “Genetic Analysis of the COVID-19 Virus and Other Pathogens”. Request a free copy to access the full version.* At the end of 2019, a virus appeared somewhere in the Chinese city of Wuhan. It caused cold and flu-like symptoms in most, but also pneumonia and death in a few…. Read more »
We would like to thank everyone who entered our 2020 Abstract Competition. It is wonderful to read about the different ways Golden Helix software is being applied around the world. It is our pleasure to announce this year’s winners! First Place: Dr. Robert Hamilton and Priyanka Kugamoorthy – SickKids Yearly Clinical Review of a Patient’s WGS Results Leads to a… Read more »
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 »
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 »
As many of our users know, VarSeq comes shipped with various project templates that are designed to give users a baseline workflow to get started with their projects. These templates are tailored for various applications including tumor-normal, trios, cancer and hereditary gene panels, and ACMG Guidelines workflows. The templates contain application-specific annotation sources and algorithms that will automatically load into… Read more »
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 »
Customizing VSClinical ACMG Guidelines Workflow Part 2 In the first part of this series, we covered how VarSeq provides customization of the clinical analysis workflow process. VSClinical’s various customization parameters within the ACMG Guidelines workflow includes the choice of how the internal knowledge base of previous variant interpretations are stored and what considerations go into this choice. In this blog, we… Read more »
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 »
When interpreting a variant using the AMP/ASCO guidelines for somatic variant interpretation, clinicians must determine whether the variant can be considered a biomarker that affects clinical care by predicting sensitivity, resistance, or toxicity to a specific therapy. Such a determination requires the investigation of multiple evidence sources, including clinical trials, FDA approved therapies and peer-reviewed studies. Unfortunately, strong evidence linking… Read more »
Clinical labs offer a unique and sophisticated product that is performed repeatedly with high standards of quality. VarSeq was developed to provide labs with the customization required for clinical genetic tests in a repeatable workflow. On top of this, VSClinical offers additional parameters and choices that can be made when designing the test workflow. In this blog series, we will… Read more »
Happy New Year! Certainly, I hope you had a relaxing time over the holidays with family and friends as well as a great start into the new year. 2019 was a real landmark year for Golden Helix. Please let me mention a few highlights: We launched VSClinical AMP in June 2019: This product is supporting the clinical variant interpretation based… Read more »
Genetic testing labs deal with personal data in categories with the highest level of security requirements: personal identity and medical records. Given the liability and risk associated with a breach of this secure information, it is not surprising that many labs and institutes that aggregate genomic data prefer, if not require, on-premise analysis and storage solutions. Golden Helix is in… Read more »
As clinical genetic tests have been adopted as a critical enabler of precision medicine, the number of tests offered by clinical labs and the volume of tested patients has grown by orders of magnitude in the past five years. The Gene Testing Registry, managed by the NIH, documented a rise from 13,000 to 60,000 tests offered in the US market… Read more »
Copy Number Variation (CNV) is a type of structural variation in which sections of the genome are duplicated or deleted. Although CNV events are rare in the human population, constituting approximately 10% of the human genome, they are also associated with being causal mutations for disease phenotypes. Because of this, it is important for clinical and research settings to identify… Read more »
Thank you all for tuning in to yesterday’s webcast, “Simplify Your GWAS & Genomic Prediction with SVS”. I hope you all enjoyed it as much as I did! If you didn’t get a chance to join us for this live webcast, you can watch the recording below. We covered a lot of topics in so little time, but you all… Read more »
If you have watched this blog over time, it would be no surprise that Golden Helix invests a lot in curating genomic annotations for use with our clinical and research analysis products. Often, we spend considerable time on the attention to detail necessary to ensure the best experience for any data source by cleaning, normalizing, documenting and then distributing it through our data annotation server. Many annotations… Read more »
