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Bioinformatics Workshops - NO CODING REQUIRED

eliabrodsky — Mon, 09 Apr 2018 13:06:01 -0500

Pine Biotech, Inc., a US-based startup working with the Tauber Bioinformatics Research Center is offering a full curriculum online preparing students without any technical background for real-life challenges with large scale biomedical data. Workshops on processing, analysis and biomedical interpretation of Next Generation Sequencing data cover important up-to-date algorithms and machine learning approaches. The most important thing is that there are virtually no pre-requisites such as coding, biostatistics or advanced medical skills. If you know what gene is and how the genes are expressed, you are ready to take the courses or join our workshops. Learn more: https://edu.t-bio.info/workshops/

Webinar on Diagnosis of Rare Diseases using NGS Based Multi-gene Testing- Case studies by Dr.Aparna Ganapathy on 18 Apr 2018

Strand — Mon, 19 Mar 2018 04:40:58 -0500

A disease is considered to be ‘rare’ when it affects one in about 2000 individuals in the population. This, individually are although rare, collectively, the incidence could be very high causing a significant socio-economic burden. Arriving at a confirmatory diagnosis is a major challenge in these inherited disorders, which can significantly impact treatment and disease management. Conventional genetic testing for rare diseases focuses mostly on sequencing of fewer genes, followed by a deletion/duplica-tion analysis by multiplex ligation-dependent probe amplifi¬cation (MLPA). This sequential testing strategy is time consuming and very expensive. Multi-gene panel based on NGS (next-generation sequencing) can allow us to detect all types of mutations, including large deletions/duplications, thus allowing us to perform a comprehensive genetic testing in a cost-effective manner. Thus, with the advent of NGS technology, the possibility of offering a ‘single platform solution’ for all types of genetic defects can become a reality.

The webinar will highlight some of the interesting case studies wherein multi-gene testing with NGS was helpful in arriving at a confirmatory as well as differential diagnosis, even for complex clinical conditions. With robust bioinformatic analysis, we were able to detect few complex variations in few cases which a conventional test had missed. Some of those cases will also be discussed.

Session 1: 9 am CET, 18 Apr 2018
Session 2: 8 am CET, 18 Apr 2018
To attend, register here: http://www.strand-ngs.com/webinar_registration

About Speaker: Dr. Aparna Ganapathy is Senior scientist- Clinical Diagnostics at Strand Life Sciences. She has over 8 years of experience in human genetics and molecular biology. She received her Ph.D. in Human Molecular Genetics from Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research, Bangalore. At Strand Life Sciences, she is involved in the interpretation and clinical reporting of the genetic disorders. The focus of these genetic tests is to provide accurate and rapid clinical diagnosis for various inherited disorders.

India and Germany to begin joint research in the area of 'Bioinformatics in Health Research'

Rahul Nayak — Wed, 17 Jan 2018 14:10:36 -0600

To facilitate bilateral cooperation in biotechnology between the scientific communities of India and Germany, the Department of Biotechnology (DBT) will soon begin collaborative research in the identified priority area of 'Bioinformatics in Health Research' under the programme of Indo-German Cooperation in Health Research.

The purpose of the programme is to stimulate new collaborations, e.g. the preparation of joint projects under national funding programmes. The programme facilitates bilateral cooperation in biotechnology between the scientific communities of India and Germany by way of joint research projects which will encompass bilateral workshops/seminar and exchange visits of scientists.

The programme is being implemented within the agreement of Indo-German cooperation in S&T of 1974, under which the Department of Biotechnology, Government of India and Forschungszentrum Julich BMBH (FZJ), Federal Republic of Germany, have agreed for cooperative programme in biotechnology.

DBT of the Ministry of Science & Technology, Government of India and the Project Management Agency at the German Aerospace Center (DLR-PT, European and International Cooperation), Bonn are the nodal implementing agencies from the Indian and German side respectively.

Through this programme, it is expected that the funded cooperation enables the partners to develop applicable scientific results which can be published and/ or could be commercialised and may lead to formation of joint ventures. All publications, patents coming out of these projects, need to be jointly authored by both Indian and German scientists. All necessary approvals like ethical clearance, HMSC approval from Indian point of view as well as EU, if applicable, from German point of view, e.g. before conducting animal experimentation if any needs to be obtained by PIs before undertaking the project.

Now, both the nodal agencies have invited research proposals in identified priority area of 'Bioinformatics in Health Research' from eligible scientists. Joint research projects are required to be submitted to both the nodal agencies by 15 January 2018. Scientists/faculty members working in regular capacity in universities, national R&D laboratories/institutes and private R&D institutes can be part of this joint research programme. For the private sector, partners from all kind of private sectors are eligible, but financing is limited. For Indian scientists from the private sector, only local hospitality in Germany as part of the exchange visit is available from the German side. For German scientists from the private sector, only travel costs are available for small and medium size enterprises (for definition of SME ref. to 2003/361/EC) as well as local hospitality in India will be borne by themselves.

Webinar: Unravelling complex mutational events in clinical cases using the power of NGS data analysis by Dr Satish Sankaran on 31 Jan 2018

Strand — Tue, 26 Dec 2017 02:00:26 -0600

Live webinar on Unravelling complex mutational events in clinical cases using the power of Next generation sequencing data analysis by Dr Satish Sankaran on 31 Jan 2018 at 9am CET and 8am PST

Speaker: Dr. Satish Sankaran, Vice President and Lab Director - Clinical Operations & Clinical Lab, Strand Life Sciences Pvt Ltd

Abstract: Next Generation sequencing has come a long way in aiding genetic disease diagnosis by bringing down both the time and cost of testing. Testing involves massively parallel sequencing of a single to 100s of genes in a one assay. With a large amount of sequence data getting generated from such assays, it is critical that the data is analyzed using standard analysis tools to detect wide range of variants. Strand Life Sciences, has tested more than 3000 clinical samples using multi-gene panels for diagnosis of rare disease conditions. NGS data analysis is done using the Strand NGS software and variant prioritization and reporting using StrandOMICS.

While most analysis software can easily detect single nucleotide variants, the complex ones involving insertions and deletions are usually missed. With multiple iterations the Strand NGS software is trained to effectively detect structural and copy number changes from a single NGS data set. This is critical in certain disease conditions like Retinoblastoma and Duchenne’s Muscular Dystrophy where there are clinically relevant deletions reported.

In this presentation, we present four different case studies where we were able to detect mutations due to unusual and difficult regions in the genome from the NGS data. These results were further confirmed using orthologous methods.

Session 1: 31 Jan 2018; 9:00 AM CET
Session 2: 31 Jan 2018; 8:00 AM PST

1mb long DNA with Nanopore technology

Jit — Tue, 19 Dec 2017 18:49:28 -0600

The first continuous DNA read of more than a million bases (>1Mb) has been achieved, using Oxford Nanopore sequencing technology. Congratulations to Martin Smith and collaborators! Read more: http://bit.ly/2j5TNCO

The 10th North East Bioinformatics Network (NEBINet) Annual Coordinators' Meet

Jit — Sat, 18 Nov 2017 15:02:44 -0600

The 10th North East Bioinformatics Network (NEBINet) Annual Coordinators' Meet organised by the Bioinformatics Centre, St Edmund's College, Shillong and sponsored by the Department of Biotechnology, Government of India, was held at St Edmund's College Auditorium here on Thursday. Meghalaya Governor Ganga Prasad graced the inaugural programme as chief guest.
In his inaugural address, the Governor said the panorama of scientific scenario has greatly changed over the years, the thrust areas have undergone a metamorphosis but the conceptual underpinning of the basic sciences still continues.
"Of late, the activity of basic research has been intricately intertwined with technology. And we are determined to carry forward this change, for it is through technology that science can actually reach the masses in our country and afar, and the changing times have also inculcated a culture of cross-departmental and interdisciplinary research. Science and technology has always played a pivotal role in taking a nation towards greater heights by ways of innovations and inventions," he added.
Prasad also hoped that discussions, suggestions and sharing of innovative ideas during the two-day 10th NEBINet Annual Coordinators' Meet will open up new avenues to make substantial advancement in Biological Sciences which will provide a platform for proper and effective delivery mechanism for the common man.
During the inaugural function, Advisor of Department of Biotechnology Dr T Madhan Mohan gave an overview of the NEBINet and Bioinformatics programme.
President of Epygen Biotech FZ LLC, Dubai, UAE, Dr Debayan Ghosh, delivered the keynote address.
St Edmund's College governing body secretary Brother Simon Coelho and St Edmund's College Principal Dr Sylvanus Lamare also spoke during the function.

SCFBio have developed Sanjeevini

Jit — Fri, 17 Nov 2017 07:55:49 -0600

SCFBio have developed a new android based application for drug design called Sanjeevini (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.sanjeevini&hl=en). It is available free of charge. You can download it using Google play store. Just search for "Sanjeevini-SCFBIO-CADD" in Google play store. It contains all modules used by current Sanjeevini users. We have worked towards making a unified and easy to use interface. The app now supports all major small molecule file formats (pdb, mol, sdf, mol2 and xyz). The application contains inbuilt visualizer JSmol for easy analysis of results. Users can now directly download the protein files from PDB ("Get protein PDB file" in `FILE` Menu) and prepare it using the easy to use in-built module "Prepare protein/DNA".

SCFBio have worked towards making the process of Job retrieval more streamlined and user friendly. All jobs are now recorded in the "Job results". It can be accessed using the main page of the application. Job status can now be retrieved by clicking on the refresh button against the job ID.

SCFBio have also added a new feature of accessing Jobs run on different android application. Users can retrieve jobs run by other users by sharing the job ID and module name. This feature can be accessed using the Import Jobs option in File menu. We hope this feature will help collaborating groups stay in touch with each other.

The module contains all modules of Sanjeevini suite of software for structure based Drug design.

Sl No.	Module name	Activity
1	Prepare Protein/DNA	Prepares protein/DNA for other modules of Sanjeevini
2	Prepare ligand	Prepares ligands for other modules of Sanjeevini
3	Active site Prediction	Predicts biologically relevant sites in a protein
4	ParDOCK	Rigid Docking of Protein-Ligand complex
5	BAPPL	Binding affinity prediction of Protein-Ligand complex
6	BAPPL Z	Binding affinity prediction of Protein-Zinc-Ligand complex
7	DNA ligand Docking	Rigid Docking of DNA-Ligand complex
8	PreDDICTA	Binding affinity prediction of DNA-Ligand complex
9	SOM Prediction	Rigid Docking of Ligand and CYP proteins
10	Lipinski filters	Checks Lipinski's rule of five for ligand molecule
11	Molecular volume	Calculates volume of a ligand
12	RASPD	Virtual screening of protein molecule to yield hit molecules
13	AADS	Prediction and docking of top 10 biologically relevant sites on protein
14	Intercalate	Rigid Docking of DNA-Ligand complex in intercalation sites
15	DNA sequence to str.	Converts DNA sequence to DNA structure (A-DNA or B-DNA)
16	NRDBSM	Non-redundant database of small molecules
17	TPACM4	Partial charge calculator for small molecules
18	Wiener index	Wiener index calculator for small molecules

The results can be downloaded to the PC desktop for further analysis. For this you can use this accompanying website for this purpose:
http://www.scfbio-iitd.res.in/sanjapp/webSearch/Sanjeevini_webpage.html

On more information on how to use the application please visit: http://scfbio-iitd.res.in/sanjapp/webSearch/doc.html
or
http://scfbio-iitd.res.in/sanjeeviniapp/tut.html

Please email us your valuable comments and suggestions at iitd.scfbio@gmail.com

Joint webinar by Agilent Technologies and Strand Life Sciences on 'Analysis of Variants using GeneSpring GX' on 6 Dec

Strand — Wed, 15 Nov 2017 06:57:06 -0600

Live webinar on Analysis of Variants using GeneSpring GX 14.9 on 6th Dec at 8 AM PST
Variant analysis workflow in GeneSpring GX is designed for detection, management and analysis of genetic variants such as single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and InDels. The webinar showcases SNP data analysis from a public repository for identification of germline and somatic mutations. This is a simple workflow for selection of homozygous SNPs from Variant Call Format (VCF) file and for filtering based on heterozygous SNPs, multi-nucleotide polymorphisms (MNPs) and insertion-deletions (InDels). Multi-omic integration of datasets shows related attributes from different datasets in a biologically meaningful way.

Speaker: Dr. Dipa Roy Choudhury, Senior Application Scientist, Agilent Technologies Inc.
Details: December 6, 2017 at 8:00 am PST
Register for this Webinar

Webinar on Unique Molecular Identifier (UMI)-powered Ultra-sensitive Variant Calling using Strand NGS - Case Study

Strand — Tue, 07 Nov 2017 03:55:52 -0600

Webinar on Unique Molecular Identifier-powered Ultra-sensitive Variant Calling using Strand NGS - Case Study

by Dr. Pandurang Kolekar, Bioinformatics Engineer, Strand Life Sciences

Abstract:

Unique Molecular Identifiers (UMIs) are short random nucleotide sequences that are increasingly being used in high-throughput sequencing experiments. In this webinar, we will highlight the UMI-friendly features of Strand NGS v3.1 including support for handling well known and customised UMI libraries, QC metrics, consensus alignment, UMI-based family size filters for read list, genome browser enabled with UMI-specific features and filters, UMI-aware variant calling parameters, and exporting UMI-tagged aligned samples. These all features together empower users to harness the potential of UMI-tagged NGS data for deeper insights. A case study demonstrating application of these UMI-based features in Strand NGS for low frequency variant calling in cfDNA sample will be presented.

UMI-tagged NGS libraries allow, ultra-sensitive detection of low frequency variants from liquid biopsy samples using DNA-Seq and accurate quantification of transcript-level expression using RNA-Seq. The recent release of Strand NGS v3.1, is equipped with the necessary features to efficiently analyse UMI-tagged NGS data helping researchers and labs involved in rare variant calling like in cfDNA based cancer diagnostics, and accurate transcript quantification with RNA-Seq.

Webinar Details:

Session 1: 13 Dec 2017, 2:30 PM IST
Session 2: 13 Dec 2017, 9:30 PM IST

Register here: http://www.strand-ngs.com/webinar_registration

Strand Life Sciences announces the release of Strand NGS v3.1 at ASHG 2017

Yeshodari — Mon, 23 Oct 2017 02:39:24 -0500

Strand Life Sciences announces the release of Strand NGS v3.1 at ASHG 2017

ORLANDO, USA, Oct 17, 2017/ PRNewswire/

Strand NGS now supports large scale RNA- and small-RNA-Seq and Unique Molecular Identifiers (UMIs) for DNA-, RNA-, and small-RNA-Seq.

Strand Life Sciences announced the latest version release of its bioinformatics flagship product, Strand NGS, at the Annual Meeting of the American Society of Human Genetics today. Two major themes in Strand NGS v3.1 address recent challenges in next generation sequencing (NGS).

The first theme is large-scale RNA-Seq data analysis. Current cross-cohort RNA- and small-RNA-Seq studies span tens of replicates and batches across hundreds of samples, sometimes conducted across several different institutions. For such studies, Strand NGS v3.1 includes confounding variable analysis to eliminate technical effects, including batch effects; the t-SNE plot; profile and heat-map plots of gene-body coverage; and several other notable visual enhancements.

The second new feature is support for Unique Molecular Identifiers, or UMIs, for DNA-, RNA- and small-RNA-Seq. UMI support in Strand NGS is end-to-end, spanning alignment to variant calling in DNA-Seq, and alignment to quantification in RNA- and small-RNA-Seq. The Bioo Scientific, Qiagen, and Rubicon UMI protocols are natively supported, and an intuitive interface allows the specification of custom UMI protocols.

“For liquid biopsies and low-grade FFPE samples, UMI support in DNA-Seq enables the detection of somatic variants at low concentrations. In RNA-Seq, large-scale and UMI support can be used in single-cell-based studies that reveal tumor-cell heterogeneity, even at low concentrations”, says Dr. Vamsi Veeramachaneni, Chief Scientific Officer, Strand Life Sciences.

“At Strand, we are continuously working towards improving the accuracy and efficiency of NGS data analysis. Customers can look forward to Strand NGS becoming available on the cloud in the near future”, says Dr. Ramesh Hariharan, Chief Executive Officer, Strand Life Sciences.

Visit Strand Life Sciences at ASHG booth #1017 to know more about Strand NGS v3.1 and other products and service offerings from Strand Life Sciences. Click here to access detailed agenda and v3.1 release notes.

About Strand Life Sciences

Strand Life Sciences is a premier life science informatics innovation company. Founded in 2000, Strand is a leader in technology innovations for healthcare using genomics. By enhancing sequence-based diagnostics and clinical genomic data interpretation using a strong foundation of computational, scientific, and medical expertise, Strand is bringing individualized medicine to the world. To know more, visit www.strandls.com