BOL: Related items

X. Shirley Liu Lab

Tue, 26 May 2015 17:28:23 -0500

The research in our laboratories are focused on the following three areas:

Bioinformatics
Cancer
Epigenetics

More at http://liulab.dfci.harvard.edu/

NVIDIA and Arc Institute Unveil Evo 2: A Breakthrough AI for DNA Design

BioStar — Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:39:47 -0600

NVIDIA and the Arc Institute have introduced Evo 2, a groundbreaking AI model designed to understand, predict, and generate DNA sequences. This marks a major advancement in computational biology, offering scientists an unprecedented tool to decode the genetic blueprint of life and even design entirely new biological systems.

The Power of Evo 2: AI Meets DNA

Evo 2 is the largest AI model for biology ever created, trained on an astonishing 9.3 trillion DNA "letters" (nucleotides) carefully selected from genomes spanning the entire tree of life. This massive dataset ensures that Evo 2 can recognize patterns and relationships in genetic sequences at an unparalleled scale.

For the first time, scientists can design DNA with AI, moving beyond simple sequence analysis to active DNA generation. Evo 2 enables researchers to predict, modify, and even create entire genetic sequences, opening new possibilities in medicine, agriculture, and synthetic biology.

Decoding the Dark Genome

One of the biggest challenges in genetics is understanding the non-coding regions of DNA—vast stretches of the genome that do not code for proteins but play crucial roles in regulating gene expression. These regions control when and how genes are activated, influencing everything from development to disease.

Evo 2 is designed to decode these non-coding elements, helping researchers uncover their functions and use this knowledge to develop gene-based therapies, synthetic life forms, and precision agriculture solutions.

From Reading DNA to Writing It

To put Evo 2’s impact into perspective:

Previous AI models could "read" DNA like a book, analyzing genetic sequences and identifying patterns.
Evo 2 can "write" entirely new DNA, designing functional genes, chromosomes, and even full genomes from scratch.

This means scientists can now engineer biological systems with AI, designing new proteins, metabolic pathways, and genetic circuits to address real-world challenges.

A Step Toward Generative Biology

The Arc Institute describes Evo 2 as a major step toward "generative biology"—a revolutionary approach where AI is used to create novel biological structures rather than just analyzing existing ones. This could lead to breakthroughs such as:

New medicines: AI-generated enzymes and proteins tailored for targeted therapies.
Disease-resistant crops: Genetically optimized plants for higher yield and climate resilience.
Synthetic organisms: Custom-designed microbes for bioremediation, biofuel production, and industrial applications.

An Open-Source Revolution

Unlike many proprietary AI models, Evo 2 is open source, making its capabilities accessible to researchers worldwide. This democratization of AI-driven biology means that scientists from different disciplines can collaborate, experiment, and innovate, accelerating discoveries in genetic engineering and synthetic biology.

With Evo 2, the boundaries of what’s possible in DNA design, genetic engineering, and biological innovation are being redrawn. The future of life sciences is no longer just about understanding life’s code—it’s about writing it.

Aurora: A New Detective for Bacterial Genomes

BioStar — Fri, 21 Aug 2026 11:31:00 -0500

Imagine trying to solve a mystery with thousands of clues—but some of the clues are labelled incorrectly.

That is the challenge researchers face when studying how bacteria adapt to different environments. A bacterial gene may appear to be linked to a particular habitat, when the real reason is simply that closely related bacteria happen to live there.

In their 2025 Genome Biology paper, Bujdoš, Walter, and O’Toole introduce aurora, a machine-learning tool designed to tackle this problem.

Aurora identifies potentially mislabeled or unusual bacterial strains before performing genome-wide association studies (GWAS). By cleaning up the dataset and accounting for bacterial evolutionary relationships, it can help researchers find genetic features that are more genuinely connected to habitat adaptation.

The researchers tested aurora using simulated and real bacterial datasets and found that it could recover important genetic associations even when datasets contained misleading labels.

The bigger lesson is simple: better biological discoveries often begin with better data.

Aurora gives researchers a new way to separate real genetic clues from misleading ones—and could help us better understand how bacteria adapt, survive, and evolve in the environments they call home.

Based on Bujdoš et al., “aurora: a machine learning GWAS tool for analyzing microbial habitat adaptation,” Genome Biology (2025).[Read the original paper](https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s13059-025-03524-7?)

Luo Lab | Symbiosis Genomics & Evolution

Wed, 09 Sep 2026 03:30:30 -0500

We study the evolutionary genomics of marine invertebrates to understand their origins and diversity. Our lab combines high-throughput sequencing and single-cell transcriptomics to explore a wide range of non-model systems. We are particularly interested in how evolutionary novelty arises, with a focus on animal development and photosymbiosis.

Research Directions

Stony corals: evolution of novelty and photosymbiosis

Symbiotic acoels: cell type evolution and photosymbiosis

Animal genomes: structural evolution and gene regulation

https://sgel.biodiv.tw/home

The Human Genome Project Video 3D Animation Introduction Low)

Sat, 24 Aug 2013 19:01:19 -0500

Quick next generation sequencing (NGS) terms definition

Neel — Fri, 09 Jun 2017 04:52:26 -0500

fragment size: the Illumina WGS protocol generates paired-end reads from both ends of longer fragments. The lengths of these fragments are assumed to be sampled from a normal distribution. Therefore, in the absence of structural variants, mapping locations of the paired ends span within an interval [δmin,δmax]. Most (>90%) of paired-end reads are sampled from no-SV regions, therefore the fragment size distribution can be learned empirically for each WGS data set separately.

concordant reads: a read pair is called concordant if they can be mapped to the reference genome as “expected”: (a) mapped to opposing strands where the upstream read is mapped to the forward strand and the downstream read is mapped to the reverse strand2, (b) the distance between ends is between the minimum and maximum expected fragment size.

discordant reads: briefly, any non-concordant read pair is considered discordant. Note that, by definition, the discordant read pairs signal potential SVs. The sequence signature produced by these type of reads is known as read-pair signature.

split reads: a read that can only be mapped to the reference genome by breaking into two sub-reads is called a split-read. These types of reads also indicate a potential SV or a short insertion or deletion (indel).

read depth: number of reads that map within a region of the genome. Overall genome-wide read depth is also referred to as depth of coverage. It is expected that the number of reads that “cover” each base-pair to follow a Poisson distribution. Therefore, if the read depth over a certain region deviates significantly from this distribution, it signals for a potential copy number variation (CNV).

HALC: High throughput algorithm for long read error correction

Jit — Fri, 08 Jun 2018 10:47:41 -0500

HALC, a high throughput algorithm for long read error correction. HALC aligns the long reads to short read contigs from the same species with a relatively low identity requirement so that a long read region can be aligned to at least one contig region, including its true genome region’s repeats in the contigs sufficiently similar to it (similar repeat based alignment approach) HALC was able to obtain 6.7-41.1% higher throughput than the existing algorithms while maintaining comparable accuracy. The HALC corrected long reads can thus result in 11.4-60.7% longer assembled contigs than the existing algorithms.

Address of the bookmark: https://github.com/lanl001/halc

Convert EnsEMBL GTF to Annotation table (Geneid, GeneSymbol, GeneWiseChrLocation, GeneClass, Strand) Raw

EagleEye — Fri, 24 Jun 2016 18:08:49 -0500

Bash Script source:

https://gist.github.com/santhilalsubhash/367befcf5216be4b1fd9

Information:

This script converts EnsEMBL GTF (Ex: https://gist.githubusercontent.com/santhilalsubhash/1e7cca357e52a181dc25/raw/cfb803e07900a2baefbb6534f1299fd30cb57a29/sample.GTF) file to annotation table format. It generated two files
1) Transcript wise chromosome location with information about transcripts (Ex: https://gist.githubusercontent.com/santhilalsubhash/c7dec516e0338503a4b6/raw/de0af1a39f0005c4ce7321c5ae57fc8b4a14c7f4/sample.GTF_enst_annotation.txt)
2) Gene wise chromosome location with information about genes (Ex: https://gist.githubusercontent.com/santhilalsubhash/c92006c5080f0333bec2/raw/d16e0b2440d73b09b486d3c9751cdb248a73fa0b/sample.GTF_ensg_annotation.txt)

Note: You can download GTF files from http://www.ensembl.org/info/data/ftp/index.html

nQuire: a statistical framework for ploidy estimation using next generation sequencing

Jit — Thu, 04 Oct 2018 05:23:59 -0500

nQuire provides a statistical framework to study organisms with intraspecific variation in ploidy. nQuire is likely to be useful in epidemiological studies of pathogens, artificial selection experiments, and for historical or ancient samples where intact nuclei are not preserved. It is implemented as a stand-alone Linux command line tool in the C programming language and is available at https://github.com/clwgg/nQuireunder the MIT license.

Address of the bookmark: https://github.com/clwgg/nQuireunder

Research opening @ IBAB, Bengaluru

Mon, 28 Jan 2019 17:45:54 -0600

Applications are invited for the position of Project Assistant in Bio-IT centre at IBAB, Electronic city, Bengaluru. The successful candidate will work in the next-generation sequencing (NGS) facility to perform nucleic acid isolations, quality and quantity analyses, NGS library preparations, and maintenance of sequencing related instruments and other related lab equipment. In addition, the candidate is expected to assist in various administrative matters including procurement, maintaining inventory of laboratory consumables etc. The person will have opportunity to get expertise in entire pipeline of NGS. After sufficient training, the person will act as a demonstrator in the workshops conducted by Bio-IT centre.
Essential Qualifications, Experiences, and Skills:

1. MSc. or B. Tech. or equivalent degree in Biotechnology or related life sciences discipline.
2. Strong aptitude for laboratory work and should be detail-oriented person.
3. Hands-on experience in basic molecular biology techniques.
4. Prior experience in working in a research laboratory or industry.
5. Basic IT skills that include familiarity with Microsoft Office packages.
6. Ability to carry out basic maintenance of general lab equipments and laboratory resources.
7. Ability to maintain accurate records of laboratory work.
8. Willingness to learn, and should be a team player.
Desirable Experience and Skills:
1. Familiarity with NGS technology.
2. Experience in preparation of NGS libraries.
3. Familiarity with Sanger sequencing technology (capillary electrophoresis based)

Remuneration: Remuneration will commensurate with expertise and experience.

How to Apply: Interested applicants fulfilling the criteria may send their detailed CV and a cover letter that explains their suitability for this position, in a single PDF, to Dr. Sreekanth Reddy at careers_bioit@ibab.ac.in. Last date for submission of application is 23rd February 2019. Please mention the position applying for in the subject line of the email.

About IBAB: The Bio-IT Centre at IBAB has state-of-art sequencing facility with the HiSeq 2500 and accessories such as Qubit, Covaris, Agilent 2200 TapeStation, Stratagene Mx 3000 for next generation sequencing, 3500 Dx Genetic Analyzer for capillary electrophoresis based sequencing, and HiScan for microarray imaging. The facility is fully operational and providing services to the scientific community. The Institute of Bioinformatics and Applied Biotechnology (IBAB) is a unique institute engaged in education, research and entrepreneur support programs and is based at Electronic City, Bangalore. IBAB’s mission is to catalyze the growth of the biotechnology and bioinformatics industries in India. To know more please visit: http://www.ibab.ac.in/index.php/bioit/