BOL: Related items

Bioinformatics Programme Officer @ International Centre for Genetic ICGEB Engineering and Biotechnology

Fri, 23 Nov 2018 03:50:16 -0600

The following vacancies are available in the DBT Apex Biotechnology Information project at ICGEB, New Delhi, India. These positions are available for a period of approx. two years, however, initial appointment offer will be for 6 months, which will be extended based on performance of work. Salaries will be offered as per DBT, educational qualification and experience. Depending on requirements, selected candidates may be required to work on location from the Department of Biotechnology, New Delhi. Shortlisted candidates will be invited for an interview at ICGEB. Only the selected candidates will be informed individually. No TA/DA or accommodation will be offered to the candidates attending the interview.

4 Programme Officer 1
5 Technical Research Assistant 1

Minimum Educational Qualification, desirable experience and expected duties:

4: The applicants should be Postgraduates with experience in Data collection and Statistics, especially in Biotechnology-related data.

Expected duties: Collection of Biotechnology related information from India, to facilitate the Apex BTIC experts committee review of programmes at centres and R&D programs funded by DBT.

5: The applicants should be Postgraduates in Science with experience in Bioinformatics-related projects.
Expected duties: The candidates will assist the senior staff of the centre in daily activities and help in the preparation of the Annual Training Calendar, seminar and training podcasts/videos, repository of training material and Apex BTIC Newsletter.

Interested candidates should submit their full, updated Curriculum Vitae with a detailed description of relevant experience, along with two references by December 14th, 2018, addressed to, The Chairperson, DBT- Apex BTIC, ICGEB, Aruna Asaf Ali Marg, New Delhi 110067, Email: abtic@icgeb.res.in, kindly write “Application for DBT Apex BTIC vacancy” in the subject of the email or envelope, if sending by post.

Advertisement: http://www.icgeb.org/tl_files/Vacancies/dbt-abtic-vac-annmntrevsk.pdf

Genetic basis of tail-loss evolution

LEGE — Tue, 04 Mar 2025 12:12:36 -0600

The paper "On the genetic basis of tail-loss evolution in humans and apes (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07095-8)", published in Nature, investigates the genetic mechanisms that led to the loss of tails in humans and apes. The study suggests that a specific genetic mutation, involving the insertion of an Alu element (a type of transposable DNA sequence), played a critical role in the evolutionary transition from tailed primates to tailless hominoids.

Key Findings of the Study:

Alu Insertion and Tail Loss:
The researchers discovered an Alu-mediated genetic change in a common ancestor of modern apes and humans. This change disrupted the normal function of a gene involved in tail development, leading to the suppression of tail formation.
Gene Disruption Mechanism:
The Alu insertion was found within a regulatory region of the TBXT gene (also known as T or Brachyury), which is crucial for tail development in vertebrates. This insertion likely altered the gene's expression patterns, leading to tail reduction over evolutionary time.
Functional Evidence from Model Organisms:
To test their hypothesis, the researchers introduced similar genetic modifications in mice. The modified mice exhibited shortened or absent tails, supporting the idea that the identified mutation played a role in tail loss in hominoids.
Evolutionary Implications:
The findings suggest that small, random genomic changes—such as transposable element insertions—can have profound effects on body morphology. This study provides evidence that mobile DNA elements (like Alu) can drive major evolutionary transitions.
Relevance to Human Evolution:
Understanding the genetic basis of tail loss helps in reconstructing the evolutionary history of hominins (the lineage that includes humans and our extinct relatives). It also sheds light on how genetic variations contribute to anatomical diversity among primates.

Significance of the Study:

This research highlights the role of transposable elements in shaping evolutionary traits and provides a concrete genetic explanation for a defining characteristic of humans and great apes. It also demonstrates how mutations in regulatory regions of developmental genes can lead to significant anatomical changes.

Chromonomer: a tool set for repairing and enhancing assembled genomes through integration of genetic maps and conserved synteny

Jit — Mon, 17 Feb 2020 05:38:46 -0600

Chromonomer is a program designed to integrate a genome assembly with a genetic map. Chromonomer tries very hard to identify and remove markers that are out of order in the genetic map, when considered against their local assembly order; and to identify scaffolds that have been incorrectly assembled according to the genetic map, and split those scaffolds.

Address of the bookmark: http://catchenlab.life.illinois.edu/chromonomer/

iRNAD: a computational tool for identifying D modification sites in RNA sequence

Abhimanyu Singh — Thu, 16 May 2019 00:20:07 -0500

iRNAD, for identifying D modification sites in RNA sequence. In this predictor, the RNA samples derived from five species were encoded by nucleotide chemical property and nucleotide density. Support vector machine was utilized to perform the classification.

http://lin-group.cn/server/iRNAD/

Address of the bookmark: http://lin-group.cn/server/iRNAD/

Apollo: A Sequencing-Technology-Independent, Scalable, and Accurate Assembly Polishing Algorithm

BioStar — Mon, 16 Mar 2020 10:09:26 -0500

Apollo is an assembly polishing algorithm that attempts to correct the errors in an assembly. It can take multiple set of reads in a single run and polish the assemblies of genomes of any size. Described by Firtina et al. (preliminary version at https://arxiv.org/pdf/1902.04341.pdf

More at https://academic.oup.com/bioinformatics/advance-article/doi/10.1093/bioinformatics/btaa179/5804978?rss=1

Address of the bookmark: https://github.com/CMU-SAFARI/Apollo

Quick tour of Genetic Algorithms !

Jit — Thu, 17 Jan 2019 03:42:48 -0600

The R package GA provides a collection of general purpose functions for optimization using genetic algorithms. The package includes a flexible set of tools for implementing genetic algorithms search in both the continuous and discrete case, whether constrained or not. Users can easily define their own objective function depending on the problem at hand.

https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/GA/vignettes/GA.html

Address of the bookmark: https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/GA/vignettes/GA.html

GPOPSIM: a simulation tool for whole-genome genetic data

Jit — Wed, 17 Jan 2018 03:47:46 -0600

GPOPSIM is a simulation tool for pedigree, phenotypes, and genomic data, with a variety of population and genome structures and trait genetic architectures. It provides flexible parameter settings for a wide discipline of users, especially can simulate multiple genetically correlated traits with desired genetic parameters and underlying genetic architectures.

Address of the bookmark: https://github.com/SCAU-AnimalGenetics/GPOPSIM

Flanker

Rahul Nayak — Sat, 27 Feb 2021 22:04:53 -0600

Flanker, a Python package which performs alignment-free clustering of gene flanking sequences in a consistent format, allowing investigation of mobile genetic elements (MGEs) without prior knowledge of their structure. Flanker can be flexibly parameterised to finetune outputs by characterising upstream and downstream regions separately and investigating variable lengths of flanking sequence.

Address of the bookmark: https://github.com/wtmatlock/flanker

Scaffolding of a bacterial genome using MinION nanopore sequencing

Rahul Agarwal — Tue, 07 Jul 2015 16:59:25 -0500

Second generation sequencing has revolutionized genomic studies. However, most genomes contain repeated DNA elements that are longer than the read lengths achievable with typical sequencers, so the genomic order of several generated contigs cannot be easily resolved. A new generation of sequencers offering substantially longer reads is emerging, notably the Pacific Biosciences (PacBio) RS II system and the MinION system, released in early 2014 by Oxford Nanopore Technologies through an early access program.

Address of the bookmark: http://www.nature.com/srep/2015/150707/srep11996/full/srep11996.html

SAMHAR-COVID19 Hackathon

BioStar — Fri, 17 Apr 2020 06:47:10 -0500

Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) under the aegis of the National Supercomputing Mission (NSM), a Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology (MeitY) and Department of Science & Technology (DST) initiative, in association with NVIDIA & OpenACC, announces the SAMHAR-COVID19 Hackathon.

Pandemic outbreak such as Coronavirus outbreak can create huge challenges for the Government and Public Health Officials to gather information quickly and coordinate a response. In such a situation, Artificial Intelligence (AI) can play a huge role in predicting, minimizing and stalling its spread of the virus.

C-DAC has embarked on a program SAMHAR-COVID19 (Supercomputing using AI, ML, Healthcare Analytics based Research for combating COVID19). This opportunity will provide researchers to find solutions for Identifying, Tracking and Forecasting outbreaks of COVID19 and Facilitating Drug Discovery as well.

Participants can update submissions multiple times till the Registration End date.
Each entry can be submitted by a Team comprising of minimum 3 and maximum 5 members (Including the Team Lead).
Participants will have to share the complete work activities with C-DAC. And C-DAC will have right to use the submitted application/solution for SAMHAR-COVID19 programs.
The Award will be given to the Selected/Winning Entry irrespective of the number of members in the Team (members may choose to distribute the amount among themselves).
The decision of the Eminent Jury on the I3 Award will be final and binding.
Award can be for the Team/Company/Institution, as submitted in the Application and cannot be changed later.
Submissions will be considered void if they are in whole or part ill-eligible, incomplete, damaged, altered, counterfeit, obtained through fraud or late submission.

More at https://samhar-covid19hackathon.cdac.in/