About 8,000 years ago, the gene EGLN1 changed by a single DNA base pair. Today, a relatively short time later on the scale of human history, 88 percent of Tibetans have the genetic variation, and it was virtually absent from closely related lowland Asians. The findings indicate the genetic variation endows its carriers with an advantage.

In those without the adaptation, low oxygen caused their blood to become thick with oxygen-carrying red blood cells, an attempt to feed starved tissues, which could cause long-term complications such as heart failure. The researchers found that the newly identified genetic variation protected Tibetans by decreasing the over-response to low oxygen.

Reference: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v512/n7513/abs/nature13408.html

Free Bioinformatics workbench https://www.mn.uio.no/ifi/english/research/networks/clsi/earlier_seminars/2012/tammivesth_osloseminarfinal.pdf

Address of the bookmark: https://peerj.com/preprints/453.pdf

a) M.Sc/or equivalent in biological sciences/related areas [Position Code: PA_JRF_PF_a]
b) B.E/B.Tech/ M.Sc in biotechnology/bioinformatics/computer science/Chemistry/Physics or MCA [Position Code: PA_JRF_PF_b]
c) M.Sc/or equivalent in wildlife sciences/ecology/environmental sciences or MBBS/BVSc/MVSc. [Position Code: PA_JRF_PF_c]

(Candidates with result awaited are NOT eligible to apply)

Upper Age limit 28years

Rs.12000 / Rs.16000 (as sanctioned by the funding agency)

2. Post Doctoral Fellow/Research Associate in multiple research areas [PDF_RA]

Ph.D. (submitted/awarded) in any branch of biological Sciences. Candidates with Ph.D. in other sciences are also encouraged to apply.

Experience in molecular biology, biochemistry, structural biology, cell biology, infectious disease, conservation genetics, veterinary science, reproductive biology, and molecular diagnostics is desired but not mandatory.

[Position Code: PDF_RA]

UpperAge limit 35years

Rs. 22000- 26000 (as sanctioned by the funding agency)

3. Post Doctoral Scientist Fellow [PDSF]

Ph.D in any of the following areas: bioinformatics, next generation sequencing, high throughput data analysis, proteomics, bio-statistics, computer science, information technology, computer hardware and networking/clustering, parallel processing.
[Position Code: PDSF]

Upper Age limit 40 years

Rs. 40000 consolidated (as sanctioned by the funding agency)

Download Application: Last date for apply online: 09th Oct 2014

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Apply online http://www.ccmb.res.in/positions/temp_notif/online_form.html

More at http://www.ccmb.res.in//index.php?view=notifications&mid=0&id=71&nid=38

ArrayGen specializes in Genomics data analysis and research, as we believe in the level of precision, predictability, benchmark-ability, and data analysis capability of genomics data over other forms of biological data. ArrayGen constantly strives to develop new solutions, and plug the existing gaps in the technological advancement of the field.

More http://www.arraygen.com/

Research topic: Protein function annotation, multiple probabilistic models, domain architecture, machine learning, combinatorial optimization, computer grid.

This project is run on the Laboratoire de Biologie Computationnelle et Quantitative UMR7238 CNRS-UPMC – Analytical Genomics team, headed by A.Carbone. It is co-advised with Pierre-Henri Wuillemin, Laboratoire d’Informatique de Paris 6 – Equipe DECISION.

The postdoc will be payed under a contract of Ingénieur de Recherche lasting 3.5 years and it is available from September 1st, 2014.

Group Web Page: http://www.lcqb.upmc.fr/AnalGenom/home.html

Ref. E-Mail: Alessandra Carbone alessandra.carbone@lip6.fr

Scientists face a big challenge with the human genome. They can read its letters, but understanding their roles is much harder. Only about 2 percent of the genome codes for proteins. The rest acts like a huge control panel, deciding when and where genes turn on. With about 9 billion possible single-letter changes, testing them all in a lab just isn’t possible.

So, Google DeepMind asked a new question: what if we could predict what those changes might do?

This question led to the AlphaGenome Atlas (https://deepmind.google.com/science/alphagenome/atlas?), a detailed map of nearly every possible single-letter change in the human genome. Instead of checking each change one by one, researchers can use the Atlas to spot the ones most likely to matter. The AlphaGenome Variant Impact (AVI) score works like a trail marker, pointing scientists toward the changes worth a closer look.

This is where the Atlas gets especially useful. Much of the genome lies outside the protein-coding regions, where DNA acts as a switch or controller for genes. AlphaGenome lets researchers explore these areas and see how small changes could affect gene activity.

An atlas isn't the destination; it's a guide.

The AlphaGenome Atlas doesn’t replace experiments or solve every mystery. Instead, it helps scientists decide where to begin. From billions of possibilities, it turns the vast genetic landscape into something researchers can start to explore.

There are nine billion possibilities, a vast map, and maybe among them therWith nine billion possibilities and a huge map to explore, there may be clues hidden here to some of medicine’s toughest mysteries.

More at https://storage.googleapis.com/deepmind-media/DeepMind.com/Blog/alphagenome-atlas-a-predictive-map-of-every-possible-dna-letter-change-in-the-human-genome/alphagenome-atlas.pdf

A recent study published in Genome Biology (https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s13059-026-04280-y) addressed this challenge by introducing dicast (https://github.com/burgshrimps/dicast), a machine-learning approach for detecting structural variants in short-read sequencing data. Structural variants, such as large deletions, insertions, duplications, and inversions, can have significant biological and clinical implications, yet they are challenging to identify with short-read technologies. Because different detection methods frequently yield divergent results, researchers commonly employ consensus calling, considering a variant valid only if multiple tools detect it. While this approach reduces false positives, it relies on the potentially flawed assumption that the majority is always correct.

The researchers explored the impact of evaluating the supporting evidence for each variant, rather than simply tallying the number of algorithms that identified it. To establish a ground truth, they analyzed nine genomes using multiple sequencing technologies and 15 detection methods, initially identifying approximately 35 million potential variants. Through extensive filtering, evidence integration, and manual review of over 11,500 variants, they developed a robust benchmark comprising more than 236,000 structural variants. The findings underscored the complexity of the problem: short-read methods detected fewer than half of deletions and less than 10 percent of insertions, with performance declining markedly in repetitive genomic regions. In contrast, long-read technologies demonstrated superior detection capabilities. However, replacing the substantial volume of existing short-read data in clinical and research settings is not immediately feasible. Consequently, the researchers questioned whether short-read data might harbor more information than conventional analytical pipelines currently extract.

This line of inquiry led to the development of dicast. Rather than merely confirming agreement among multiple tools, dicast identifies patterns in sequencing data, including split and clipped reads, discordant read pairs, alignment characteristics, and the surrounding genomic context. An XGBoost machine-learning model evaluates which combinations of these signals are indicative of genuine structural variants. Thus, the approach shifts from tallying algorithmic consensus to interpreting the underlying evidence.

The researchers subsequently conducted a targeted evaluation by examining structural variants detected by only a single short-read tool, which are typically missed by consensus-based approaches. dicast successfully recovered approximately 81% of these single-caller deletions, insertions, and duplications. The signals for these variants were present in the data, but conventional filtering methods failed to integrate them effectively.

The utility of dicast was further demonstrated in cohorts with rare diseases, including congenital limb malformations, atrial fibrillation, and neuromuscular disorders. In one instance, dicast achieved a deletion recall rate of approximately 0.96, compared to 0.74 using consensus calling. The median number of variants requiring manual review was 29 per sample. Among 31 experimentally validated variants that standard filters would have missed, dicast identified 12, whereas consensus calling detected only one.

Overall, dicast identified approximately 20 percent more potential disease-causing deletions than consensus-based methods. While a 20 percent increase may appear modest, in clinical genomics such improvements can have significant practical implications. Missing a deletion may leave a case unresolved, whereas detecting a structural variant can provide critical diagnostic insights.

The study does not claim that machine learning has rendered short-read sequencing superior to long-read approaches. Instead, the results underscore the effectiveness of long-read sequencing for structural variant detection. However, dicast highlights a more nuanced perspective: substantial biological information may still be recoverable from the extensive short-read datasets already available.

The principal lesson extends beyond the detection of structural variants. For many years, bioinformatics pipelines have relied on threshold-based criteria, such as minimum coverage, quality scores, or support from multiple tools. While these rules are useful, biological phenomena do not always conform to rigid checklists; multiple weak signals, when considered collectively, can provide compelling evidence.

This perspective prompts consideration of the solitary variant: one algorithm identifies it, while several others do not. Traditional consensus techniques might have dismissed it, yet machine learning approaches evaluate the available evidence to determine whether the variant is plausible.

Occasionally, the most significant variant within a genome is the one that is almost universally overlooked.

Read more at https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s13059-026-04280-y

Address of the bookmark: https://cloud.google.com/genomics/

Handle sequence locations for bioinformatics http://www.ingolia-lab.org/seqloc-tutorial.html

Address of the bookmark: http://www.stackage.org/snapshot/nightly-2014-12-28/package/seqloc-0.6