Most people who have a balanced translocation have the right amount of chromosome material but it has been rearranged in some way. This may happen if two chromosomes swap pieces (a reciprocal translocation). In other cases two whole chromosomes may become stuck together (a Robertsonian translocation). This page describes what happens when someone has a reciprocal translocation.

Reciprocal chromosomal translocations occur following double-strand breaks (DSBs) in DNA when a section of one chromosome is exchanged with that of another, non-homologous chromosome. These exchanges may produce a dysfunctional fusion gene that disrupts cell growth and survival pathways, such as the translocations seen in leukemia and childhood sarcomas.

Chromosomal translocations have been well studied in cancer cell lines which are associated with two types of cancer, acute myeloid leukemia and Ewing's sarcoma, but determining how they contribute to cancer development is complicated by additional mutations and altered gene expression profiles in these cultured cells. Now, Juan Carlos Ramirez, head of the Viral Vector Facility at the Fundacion Centro Nacional de Investigaciones Cardiovasculares (CNIC) and his colleagues Raul Torres at CNIC and Sandra Rodriguez-Peralez at the Spanish National Cancer Center (CNIO) in Madrid, Spain have used a new genome editing tool, CRISPR-Cas9, to induce chromosomal translocations for the first time in a human cell line and in primary cells. The study's authors conclude by stating that the use of this technology will allow for the clarification of how and why chromosomal translocation occurs, which without doubt will allow new anti-cancer therapeutic strategies to be tackled.

Using RNA-Guided Endonuclease (RGEN) technology or CRISPR/Cas9 genome engineering technology, CNIO and CNIC researchers have shown that it is possible to obtain such chromosomal translocations. The CRISPR-Cas9 system is extremely simple to introduce a cut at the desired locus, easier to design, and cheaper than many other systems. Using the CRISPR-Cas9 system, Ramirez and his colleagues reproduced the translocations observed in Ewing’s Sarcoma (ES) and Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML) patient cell lines in HEK293 cells and also generated the ES translocation in human mesenchymal stem cells and the AML translocation in umbilical cord blood cells.

By focusing on chromosomal translocation without the confounding characteristics of established cell lines, these new cells lines should help answer the fundamental question of what causes a cell to become cancerous. Ramirez and his team now look forward to modeling other chromosome translocations in a variety of cell types.

Reference:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chromosomal_translocation

http://www.nature.com/ncomms/2014/140603/ncomms4964/abs/ncomms4964.html

Reference:

https://www.pacb.com/blog/young-investigators-share-stellar-science-career-advice-and-bioinformatics-tools-at-smrt-leiden-2021/

Brief description: We are looking for suitable candidates in the area o computational biology/bioinformatics/genomics or related field for next-generation sequencing (NGS) data analysis for small-RNAs, RNA-Seq and targeted resequencing of plants and associated organisms. We are an interdisciplinary group where projects equally involve bioinformatics and systems biology (specially microarrays and next-generation sequencing (NGS) data analysis and its use), along with plant molecular biology, genetic engineering, field biology, and analytical plant chemistry for understanding response of plants to biotic stresses.

Essential qualification: MSc/BTech/MTech/PhD (or other suitable qualification) in disciplines preferable to bioinformatics, computational biology, computer application (or equivalent)/ ‘Advance Post-Graduate Diploma in Bioinformatics’. Proficiency in programming languages (such as Perl, C++) and/or statistics (proficient in R for example) is compulsory.

Desirable qualification: Experience in the field of genomics e.g. microarray analysis, NGS, genome annotation, database development and management, software development, systems and network biology (or related fields) will be preferred.

Application process: Applications should contain CV along with brief description (maximum 1 page) of research conducted (highlighting skills and experience) till now. Applications should be sent by e-mail to Shree Prakash Pandey, Department of Biological Sciences, Indian Institute of Science Education and Research Kolkata, Mohanpur Campus, WB, India within 14 days of this advertisement.

E-mail: sppiiserkol@gmail.com, sppandey@iiserkol.ac.in

Advertisement:

http://www.iiserkol.ac.in/announcements/adverts/671-advt_ra_shree_prakash_july_2014

Address of the bookmark: https://cmdcolin.github.io/awesome-genome-visualization/?latest=true&selected=%23BRIG&tag=Comparative

Scientists with a long-running Framingham Heart Study looked at 1,932 people (examination of about 1.5 million markers of genetic variations), comparing unrelated friends to unrelated strangers. They found that friends shared about 1% of their genes — a percentage much higher than those shared with strangers.This new findings made it clear that people have more DNA in common with those who are selected as friends than with strangers in the same population. 

The genes that lined up the most were olfactory genes, which deal with smell. The ones that lined up the least were immune system genes. The researchers weren't sure why that happened :/. Olfactory genes might be a straightforward explanation: People who like the same smells tend to be drawn to similar environments, where they meet others with the same tendencies.

Reference:

http://www.pnas.org/content/111/Supplement_3/10796.full

Image : http://i.kinja-img.com

Variant calling and/or genotyping

• DiscoSNP++ and discoSnpRAD: Reference-free small variant discovery (SNPs and indels)
• MindTheGap: Detection and assembly of large insertion variants
• TakeABreak: reference-free inversion discovery tool
• SVJedi: Structural Variant genotyper with long read data
• SVJedi-graph: Structural Variant genotyper with long read data using a variation graph

Sequence assembly

• MinYS: reference-guided genome assembly in metagenomics data
• MTG-link: local assembly tool for linked-read data
• Minia: De novo short read assembler
• de-novo pipeline: de-novo assembly pipeline (error correction / contigs / scaffolding) for genomes and meta-genomes
• Mapsembler2: Targeted assembly (not maintained)

Managing k-mers & indexation

• findere: simple strategy for speeding up queries and for reducing false positive calls from any Approximate Membership Query data structure.
  • fimpera extends findere adding the abundance information.
• kmtricks: modular tool suite for counting kmers, and constructing Bloom filters or kmer matrices, for large collections of sequencing data.
• kmindex is a tool for indexing and querying sequencing samples. It is built on top of kmtricks.
• back to sequences: Find sequences (reads, unitigs, genes) related to a set of kmers in large datasets, in a matter of seconds.
• Backpack Quotient Filter: k-mer indexing data structure with abundance
• short read connector: Detect similar reads from potentially large read set
• DSK: Count K-mer in sequences

Pangenome graph manipulation

• Pancat: Pangenome Comparison and Analysis Toolkit
• GFAGraphs: a Python library to handle pangenome graph files in GFA format.

Comparative metagenomics with k-mers

• Simka and SimkaMin: Comparative metagenomics for large-scale datasets
• Comparead & Commet: comparison of metagenomic datasets

Species and bacterial strains identification

• ORI: software using long nanopore reads to identify bacteria present in a sample at the strain level
• StrainFLAIR: STRAIN-level proFiLing using vArIation gRaph

General-purpose sequencing data manipulation

• GASSST: long read mapper
• Leon: short read compressor (now included in GATB-core)
• Bloocoo: short read corrector
• BCALM: Construct compacted de Bruijn graphs (unitigs)

 Protein Structure

• A_Purva: Contact Map Overlap solver
• MD-Jeep: Distance Geometry solver
• CSA: Comparative Structural Alignment

Workflow

• SLICEE: parallel execution of bioinformatics workflows

Comparative Genomics

• CASSIS: detection of rearrangement breakpoints
• PLAST: intensive bank-to-bank sequence comparison
• DRJBreakpointFinder: detection and precise localization of excision sites in proviral segments

Job Description: We are interested in finding an excellent postdoc with interests in protein functional annotation, machine learning and computer grids. The position is open for 3.5 years at the Université Pierre et Marie Curie, in the heart of paris.

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

Title: A novel integrative platform for large scale protein annotation that exploits a multitude of diversified probabilistic models in several protein signature databases.

We propose a novel integrated approach for large scale protein annotation that will exploit an unprecedented amount of genomic data as well as sophisticated machine learning techniques and combinatorial optimization approaches taking advantages of High Performance Computing (HPC) environments. The idea is to uncover as much as possible the evolutionary processes of protein sequences that took place throughout the whole tree of life and that affected the evolution of a protein family. We have already demonstrated in a previous work that the problem of functional annotation is inherent to the ability of uncovering such paths. Now, we shall extend this approach to large scale genome annotation by considering 11 different protein databases, constituted by about 10^9 protein sequences, and by producing a large pool of diversified probabilistic models coding for about 10^7 evolutionary protein pathways. Such models will be used to search for specific domains in genomes to be annotated. Our previous methodology needs to be fundamentally improved to deal with this large amount of biological data. In this project, we shall work on the algorithms to reduce the space of models and the search complexity, and we shall implement some important algorithmic changes towards the realization of a powerful integrated annotation tool.

Where: 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.

Start date: September 1st, 2014
Contact Person: Alessandra Carbone
Contact: alessandra.carbone@lip6.fr

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

ROLLING ADVERTISEMENT NO. 01/2014(E-1)
ADVERTISEMENT FOR THE POSITIONS OF ASSISTANT PROFESSOR CANDIDATES CAN APPLY ANY TIME DURING THE YEAR.

IIT Delhi invites applications from qualified Indian Nationals, Persons of Indian Origin (PIOs) and Overseas Citizens of India (OCIs) for the following positions in the various Departments/Centres/Schools (in the fields
mentioned alongwith them):
Post Pay Band Assistant Professor and Assistant Professor (on Contract) Rs.15600-39100 (PB-3) (Minimum pay of Rs.30000/-)+ AGP Rs.8000/-

The following norms will be followed for fixing the basic pay + AGP for Assistant Professors appointed on
contract with Ph.D but experience of 3 years or less:-
Type Qualification & Experience on the date of joining
Assistant Professor (Contract) PB3 (Rs. 15,600-39,100).

MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS AND EXPERIENCE:
Ph.D. with First class at the preceding degree or equivalent in the appropriate branch with very good academic record throughout. A minimum of three years industrial/research/teaching experience, excluding however, the experience gained while Pursuing Ph. D. The candidates should preferably be below
35 years of age for male and 38 years for female ( to be relaxed by 5 years in case of persons with physical disability, SC/ST and 3 years in case of OBC-NCL).

Qualified persons include:
(a) Indian Nationals,
(b) Foreign Nationals who are “Persons of Indian Origin” (PIO) or Overseas
Citizens of India (OCI), in whose case, if selected, permission will be sought from Govt. of India
before he/she can join IIT Delhi, or
(c) Other Foreign Nationals, in whose case, if selected, appointment will be on a contract basis for up to 5 (five) years subject to permission from the Govt. of India before he/she can join IIT Delhi.
(d) Institute specifically encourages applicants from SC/ST/OBC category as well as persons
with disability to apply for these positions.

AMAR NATH & SHASHI KHOSLA SCHOOL OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY:
Computational Neuroscience, Medical Applications of Information Technologies, Computational & Systems Biology, Machine to Machine (M2M) Technologies, Embedded Systems & Sensors, Computer Security.
KUSUMA SCHOOL OF BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES:
In-silico Biology Applications, Systems Biology, Infection Biology, Neurodegeneration.

More at http://www.iitd.ac.in/sites/default/files/jobs/faculty/spl-areas-rolling-advt.pdf

http://www.iitd.ac.in/content/faculty-positions

Apply now Job no: 494553
Work type: Continuing full time
Vacancy type: External Vacancy, Internal Vacancy
Categories: Academic - Teaching and Research

The Faculty of Science is launching a new and innovative branch of biological science at Macquarie University – Synthetic Biology. Synthetic biology combines engineering principles with molecular biological approaches to design and construct biological devices and systems. Recent highlights in this field include the design and synthesis of a functional bacterial genome and a yeast chromosome, and generation of synthetic bacterial cells. The rational synthesis of "designer" organisms yield important insights into how organisms work and has the potential to revolutionise biotechnological applications in areas such as bioenergy and biomanufacturing.

Find more at http://jobs.mq.edu.au/cw/en/job/494553/lecturersenior-lecturer-level-bc-in-synthetic-biology-research-fellow-level-b-in-synthetic-biology-lecturersenior-lecturer-level-bc-in-bioinformatics