Golden Helix Blog

Variant Interpretation with VSClinical: RET-KIF5b Gene Fusion

Sep 24, 2019

Gene Fusion Background Gene fusions are hybrid genes that result from translocations, interstitial deletions, or chromosomal inversions that can lead to constitutive gene activation and result in increased or abnormal protein production. Increased or abnormal protein production subsequently can play an important role in tumorigenesis and thus identifying and evaluating…

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Updated Annotations: The New and Improved gnomAD 2.1.1

Sep 19, 2019

The Broad Institute team led by Dan MacArthur announced the release of gnomAD version 2.1 at last year’s ASHG conference. This new version boasted data from 125,748 exomes and 15,708 genomes, but the greater updates were the improved QC refinement and more discrete sub-population break downs. Although the majority of…

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Automating & Standardizing Your NGS Workflow: Part IV

Sep 10, 2019

We have covered a lot of ground in this Automating & Standardizing Your Workflows blog series. First, we saw how to perform secondary analysis with Sentieon to generate the necessary VCF and BAM files for tertiary analysis in Part I. The implementation of VSPipeline allowed for rapid import and project…

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Following the AMP Guidelines with VSClinical: Part II

Sep 5, 2019

VSClinical  users can interpret and report genomic mutations in cancer following the AMP guidelines which we’re demonstrating in this “Following the AMP Guidelines with VSClinical” blog series. Part I introduced the hands-on analysis steps involved in creating a high-quality clinical report for targeted Next-Generation Sequencing (NGS) assays. We reviewed sample and variant quality, including the depth of coverage over the target…

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Automating & Standardizing Your NGS Workflow: Part III

Sep 3, 2019

In our last part of this series, we showed how to run a pre-built workflow template via VSPipeline to automatically import and filter sample variants to streamline the search for clinically relevant variants. Now, we can deep-dive into our filtered, pathogenic variants to fully understand and capture their final classification…

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Automating & Standardizing Your NGS Workflow: Part II

Aug 29, 2019

VSPipeline: Automating your Tertiary Workflows The first part of this “Automating & Standardizing your NGS Workflow” blog series covered the secondary analysis steps of read alignment and variant calling in a broader NGS analysis pipeline with Sentieon. The next step is to transition into the tertiary analysis via utilization of…

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Customer Publications Throughout Summer 2019

Aug 26, 2019

We are always excited to see how our software is used to support research and enable precision medicine. We believe that our customer’s success is ultimately our success! This summer was filled with many wonderful publications from across the globe and we are proud to have been a part of…

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Following the AMP Guidelines with VSClinical: Part I

Aug 23, 2019

In the world of genomics shaping precision medicine in oncology, the limiting factor is the time-to-sign-out of a fully interpreted molecular profile report. There are many components of the entire testing process that add to the turn-around time of each test. Many of these steps, such as sample prep, sequencing, and automated secondary analysis,…

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Variant Interpretation with VSClinical: Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer

Aug 20, 2019

With the increasing knowledge of mutations involved in cancer, it is imperative to have a tertiary analysis pipeline that provides users with the most up to date information on somatic mutations. VSClinical’s Cancer Add-On does just that and more; with this feature, users can investigate and report on SNVs, indels,…

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Golden Helix Named to the 2019 Inc. 5000 List of Fastest-Growing Private Companies

Aug 16, 2019

Earlier this week, Inc. magazine ranked Golden Helix on the 2019 Inc. 5000 list with three-year revenue growth of 61%. The Inc. 5000 list represents a unique look at the most successful companies within the American economy’s most dynamic segment—its independent small businesses. Microsoft, Dell, Domino’s Pizza, Pandora, Timberland, LinkedIn,…

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2019 T-Shirt Design Competition Winners

Aug 15, 2019

We would like to thank everyone who participated in our 2019 t-shirt design competition. It was great to see the amount of creativity our community expressed! We are pleased to announce this year’s winners: First Place – Dr. Marina Trigueros Dr. Marina Trigueros is a Science Illustrator and 3D Animator…

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Variant Interpretation with VSClinical: Huntington’s Disease (HD)

Aug 12, 2019

Huntington’s Disease (HD) Background Huntington’s Disease (HD) is an autosomal dominant neurodegenerative disease that is caused by a mutation in the huntingtin (HTT) gene resulting in 36 or more CAG trinucleotide repeats in exon 1. Individuals affected by HD experience motor disorders including involuntary movements and poor coordination, cognitive impairments…

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Automating & Standardizing Your NGS Workflow: Part I

Aug 5, 2019

Secondary Analysis with Sentieon: Rapid and Accurate Variant Calling This blog post will cover the utilization of secondary analysis tools to produce a list of high-quality variants and associated coverage data. This data will serve as the main, importable content for the tertiary stage of analysis where variants are interpreted…

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Automating & Standardizing Your NGS Workflow

Jul 30, 2019

As our regular customers may know, we write our blogs to provide relevant content to any NGS-based analysis with VarSeq. Our goal here at Golden Helix is to provide top quality software and guidance on how to use the software efficiently to perform variant analysis. However, this blog series will…

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Variant Interpretation with VSClinical: Congenital Myasthenic Syndromes (CMS)

Jul 26, 2019

Congenital Myasthenic Syndromes (CMS) History: Congenital Myasthenic Syndromes (CMS) are a group of rare hereditary conditions that can cause seizures, severe muscle weakness, respiratory problems, and potentially disabling weaknesses shortly after birth or early childhood (1). CMS is the result of abnormalities in acetylcholine proteins residing in the motor endplate…

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Shared Data in VarSeq

Jul 22, 2019

When using VarSeq; annotations, application settings, and assessment catalogs are all stored locally. Sometimes these resources can grow to large space grabbing directories, causing you to either purchase additional storage devices or getting rid of previously downloaded resources you might need down the road. But there’s hope! You can set…

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VarSeq Variant Annotation Normalization

Jul 18, 2019

Smoothing Hurdles into Speed Bumps when creating Annotation Sources Although most researchers assume that getting the pile of VCF sequence files is the largest hurdle in moving towards an analysis, there still exists the looming step of normalizing the variant calls in annotation sources to make variant comparison easier. In…

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Variant Interpretation with VSClinical: Evaluation of Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy

Jul 9, 2019

Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy History It was December 9th, 1989, when one of Loyola Marymount’s strongest inside players, Hank Gathers, collapsed during the middle of a collegiate level basketball game against UC Santa Barbara. Measuring in at 6’7” and weighing 210 pounds, Gathers was diagnosed with exercise-induced ventricular tachycardia, or in layman’s…

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Clinical Variant Analysis for Cancer: Part V

Jul 2, 2019

Clinical Variant Analysis for Cancer – Applying AMP Guidelines to Analyze Somatic Variants Detecting cancer at an early stage can make it much more treatable. Developing tests and making them clinically actionable is crucial to beat this disease. This eBook covers the state-of-the-art gene panel tests for cancer, walking through…

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Limited-Time Offer for VSClinical’s Cancer Add-On

Jun 27, 2019

We are upgrading all VSClinical +Cancer Add-On purchases to a 15-months license! The individualized nature of tumors requires genomic testing for providing the best outcomes for patients. Next-Gen Sequencing enables the detection of small mutations, copy number changes, and common fusions affordably and with high precision. However, the interpretation of…

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