BOL: Related items

04- Informatics Approach to Cancer - Interview with Dr. Joel Saltz

Mon, 07 Oct 2013 14:35:43 -0500

For additional information visit http://www.cancerquest.org/joel-saltz-interview. Dr. Joel Saltz is a Professor in the Departments of Pathology, Biostatistics and Bioinformatics, and Mathematics and Computer Science at Emory University. Dr. Saltz's research on bioinformatics spans several disciplines. One project involves applying computer analysis to medical imaging to yield better results for patients. As an example, a computer program may able to help doctors detect small cancers in a CT scan or mammogram. In this interview segment, Dr. Saltz discusses the informatics approach to cancer. To learn more about cancer and watch additional interviews, please visit the CancerQuest website at http://www.cancerquest.org.

sourmash: Quickly search, compare, and analyze genomic and metagenomic data sets.

BioStar — Sat, 06 Jul 2024 04:24:06 -0500

sourmash is a k-mer analysis multitool, and we aim to provide stable, robust programmatic and command-line APIs for a variety of sequence comparisons. Some of our special sauce includes:

FracMinHash sketching, which enables accurate comparisons (including ANI) between data sets of different sizes
sourmash gather, a combinatorial k-mer approach for more accurate metagenomic profiling

Please see the sourmash publications for details.

The name is a riff off of Mash, combined with @ctb's love of whiskey. (Sour mash is used in making whiskey.)

Maintainers: C. Titus Brown (@ctb), Luiz C. Irber, Jr (@luizirber), and N. Tessa Pierce-Ward (@bluegenes).

sourmash was initially developed by the Lab for Data-Intensive Biology at the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine, and now includes contributions from the global research and developer community.

Address of the bookmark: https://github.com/sourmash-bio/sourmash

Evolution and Cancer

Fri, 27 Sep 2013 11:28:49 -0500

Air date: Wednesday, January 04, 2012, 3:00:00 PM Time displayed is Eastern Time, Washington DC Local Category: Wednesday Afternoon Lectures Description: There is a broad consensus that cancer is the result of somatic cells having serially gained, by a series of mutations, the ability to grow independently, to recruit resources from the circulation and the stroma, to invade local tissues, and to found anatomically distant metastases, ultimately killing the host. From the point of view of the cancer-causing somatic cell population, this is evolution driven by mutation and selection. Genomics has resulted in a parallel consensus that the central functions of all eukaryotes are highly conserved, not only at the level of individual protein functions, but also complex biological pathways and systems. These ideas motivated a comparison between results of molecular genetic studies of experimental evolution in yeast and the molecular genetic phenomena associated with tumorigenesis and tumor progression. We find some very striking similarities, including recurring genomic rearrangements, alterations of the regulation of specific growth-promoting genes, population-genetic features that affect the fitness trajectories of growth rate variants in evolving populations, and physiological and metabolic similarities derived from the conservation of the basic plan of growth and cell multiplication among all eukaryotes. It is hoped that some of the insights from yeast will aid the interpretation of sequence changes found in tumors, especially in the urgent necessity to distinguish 'driver' from 'passenger' mutations." David Botstein's fundamental contributions to modern genetics include the development of genetic methods for understanding biological functions and the discovery of the functions of many yeast and bacterial genes. In 1980, Botstein and three colleagues proposed a method for mapping human genes that laid the groundwork for the Human Genome Project. The basic principle of the mapping scheme was to develop, by recombinant DNA techniques, random single-copy DNA probes capable of detecting DNA sequence polymorphisms when hybridized to restriction digests, or specific fragments, of an individual's DNA. The method was used in subsequent years to identify several human disease genes, such as Huntington's and BRCA1. Variations of this method enabled the sequencing phase of the Human Genome Project. In the 1990s Botstein, having moved to Stanford University School of Medicine, collaborated with Patrick O. Brown of Stanford in exploiting DNA microarrays to study genome-wide gene expression patterns in yeast and in human cancers. This required developing a new statistical method and graphical interface, widely used today to interpret genomic data. Botstein also has helped to create, with Michael Ashburner and Gerald Rubin, a bioinformatics initiative to unify the representation of gene and gene product attributes across all species, called Gene Ontology. He graduated from Harvard College and earned his doctorate from the University of Michigan. He worked at Massachusetts Institute of Technology from 1967 to 1988; served as vice president for science at Genentech from 1988 to 1990; chaired the Department of Genetics at the Stanford University School of Medicine from 1990 to 2003; and joined the Princeton University faculty in 2003. He has sat on numerous editorial boards and was the founding editor of Molecular Biology of the Cell. Among recent major awards, Bostein won the Peter Gruber Foundation Prize in Genetics in 2003, the Apple Science Innovator Award in 2008, and the Albany Medical Center Prize in 2010. The NIH Wednesday Afternoon Lecture Series includes weekly scientific talks by some of the top researchers in the biomedical sciences worldwide. For more information, visit: The NIH Director's Wednesday Afternoon Lecture Series Author: Dr. David Botstein, Princeton University Runtime: 00:59:58 Permanent link: http://videocast.nih.gov/launch.asp?17046

MGRA: Breakpoint graphs and ancestral genome reconstructions

Jit — Tue, 25 Jul 2017 08:48:25 -0500

MGRA (Multiple Genome Rearrangements and Ancestors) is a tool for reconstruction of ancestor genomes and evolutionary history of extant genomes.

It takes as an input a set of genomes represented as sequences of genes (or synteny blocks) and produces such sequences for ancestral genomes at the internal nodes of the phylogenetic tree.

The phylogenetic tree may be also specified completely or partially, in the latter case MGRA can reconstruct conserved ancestral regions (CARs) of the ancestral genome of interest.

Since version 2 MGRA supports gene insertion and deletions in addition to genome rearrangements and allows the input genomes to have different gene content.

It also can reconstruct most plausible phylogenetic tree based on the rearrangement characters.

Address of the bookmark: http://mgra.cblab.org/

Pre- or postdoctoral research fellowship in Structural Bioinformatics in Padova

Wed, 02 Oct 2013 15:12:22 -0500

University of Padova (URL: http://protein.bio.unipd.it/)

A research fellowship is available at the BioComputing Laboratory, University of Padova (URL: http://protein.bio.unipd.it/). A highly motivated and creative candidate is sought to work on structural bioinformatics. Specifically, the project entails the development of novel methods, tools and databases for the analysis of protein structures. The BioComputing Laboratory is a group of a dozen people working on several aspects of prediction of protein structure & function employing techniques at the intersection between biology, medicine, chemistry, physics & computer science. Our aim is to integrate the development of novel methods and their application to biologically relevant problems. We are looking for candidates with a solid Bioinformatics background, programming experience (Python, Perl, C++ and/or Java) and good knowledge of molecular biology (protein structure/function, signalling pathways). Candidates should have a degree with top marks, optionally hold a PhD, and be highly motivated to work on interdisciplinary research. Good knowledge of English, an open-minded spirit, being collaborative and creative are crucial. The fellowship, which should start in late 2013, is initially for one year. It will be commensurate to experience, can be extended depending on performance and may lead to a PhD degree. The successful candidate will be located at the BioComputing Laboratory, University of Padova. Travel support for conferences and/or research visits abroad may be provided. To apply, please send your CV, a brief description of your research background and the names of two (or more) references to Prof. Silvio Tosatto (Email: silvio.tosatto@unipd.it).

Contact Person (Referent): Silvio Tosatto
Ref. E-Mail: silvio.tosatto@unipd.it
Tel: +39 049 827 6269
Fax: +39 049 827 6260
Group Web Page: http://protein.bio.unipd.it/

Genomicus: genome browser that enables users to navigate in genomes in several dimensions

Jit — Sat, 18 Nov 2017 16:10:16 -0600

Genomicus is a genome browser that enables users to navigate in genomes in several dimensions: linearly along chromosome axes, transversaly across different species, and chronologicaly along evolutionary time.

Once a query gene has been entered, it is displayed in its genomic context in parallel to the genomic context of all its orthologous and paralogous copies in all the other sequenced metazoan genomes. Moreover, Genomicus stores and displays the predicted ancestral genome structure in all the ancestral species within the phylogenetic range of interest.

All the data on extant species displayed in this browser are from Ensembl.

Address of the bookmark: http://genomicus.biologie.ens.fr/genomicus-90.01/cgi-bin/search.pl

Contract Faculty-Bioinformatics at Maulana Azad National Institute of Technology

Thu, 12 Dec 2013 20:46:52 -0600

Contract Faculty-Bioinformatics at Maulana Azad National Institute of Technology

Job Description:F.No.11/10(1)/929 Qualifications: Candidates should have Ph.D. degree. If Ph.D. candidates are not available at least Post Graduate degree with GATE/NET qualification is a must. Walk-in-Interview on 19.12.2013 at 2.30 P.M. to 5.30 P.M .. at Maulana Azad National Institute of Technology: Bhopal For more details,please visit website:http://www.manit.ac.in/manitbhopal/Year2013/Recruitment/Contract_faculty/contract%20faculty%202013-2014.pdf

For more @ http://www.manit.ac.in/manitbhopal/Year2013/Recruitment/Contract_faculty/contract%20faculty%202013-2014.pdf

Web address @ :http://www.manit.ac.in

Bandage: interactive visualization of de novo genome assemblies

Shruti Paniwala — Mon, 04 Dec 2017 10:09:37 -0600

Bandage (a Bioinformatics Application for Navigating De novo Assembly Graphs Easily) is a tool for visualizing assembly graphs with connections. Users can zoom in to specific areas of the graph and interact with it by moving nodes, adding labels, changing colors and extracting sequences. BLAST searches can be performed within the Bandage graphical user interface and the hits are displayed as highlights in the graph. By displaying connections between contigs, Bandage presents new possibilities for analyzing de novo assemblies that are not possible through investigation of contigs alone.

Availability and implementation: Source code and binaries are freely available at https://github.com/rrwick/Bandage. Bandage is implemented in C++ and supported on Linux, OS X and Windows. A full feature list and screenshots are available at http://rrwick.github.io/Bandage.

Address of the bookmark: http://rrwick.github.io/Bandage/

Yau Group

Tue, 15 Oct 2013 13:05:15 -0500

Yau Group are a new research group based at the Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics and the Department of Statistics at the University of Oxford.

Yau Group develops statistical and computational methods for the analysis of genomic datasets with a particular interest in cancer sequencing applications and the use of Bayesian Statistics.

Yau Group are currently have projects in somatic mutation analysis of heterogeneous cancers, data fusion or integration techniques and single cell genomics.

More @ http://www.well.ox.ac.uk/~cyau/index.html

Tools for bacterial whole genome annotation

Radha Agarkar — Sat, 16 Dec 2017 17:37:47 -0600

RAST – Web tool (upload contigs), uses the subsystems in the SEED database and provides detailed annotation and pathway analysis. Takes several hours per genome but I think this is the best way to get a high quality annotation (if you have only a few genomes to annotate).

Prokka – Standalone command line tool, takes just a few minutes per genome. This is the best way to get good quality annotation in a flash, which is particularly useful if you have loads of genomes or need to annotate a pangenome or metagenome. Note however that the quality of functional information is not as good as RAST, and you will need several extra steps if you want to do functional profiling and pathway analysis of your genome(s)… which is in-built in RAST.

NCBI Prokaryotic Genome Annotation Pipeline is designed to annotate bacterial and archaeal genomes (chromosomes and plasmids).

Genome annotation is a multi-level process that includes prediction of protein-coding genes, as well as other functional genome units such as structural RNAs, tRNAs, small RNAs, pseudogenes, control regions, direct and inverted repeats, insertion sequences, transposons and other mobile elements.

PGAP: NCBI has developed an automatic prokaryotic genome annotation pipeline that combines ab initio gene prediction algorithms with homology based methods. The first version of NCBI Prokaryotic Genome Automatic Annotation Pipeline (PGAAP; see Pubmed Article) developed in 2005 has been replaced with an upgraded version that is capable of processing a larger data volume. NCBI's annotation pipeline depends on several internal databases and is not currently available for download or use outside of the NCBI environment.

BEACON (automated tool for Bacterial GEnome Annotation ComparisON), a fast tool for an automated and a systematic comparison of different annotations of single genomes. The extended annotation assigns putative functions to many genes with unknown functions. BEACON is available under GNU General Public License version 3.0 and is accessible at: http://www.cbrc.kaust.edu.sa/BEACON/.

BlastKOLA: Assigns K numbers to the user's sequence data by BLAST searches, respectively, against a nonredundant set of KEGG GENES. KOALA (KEGG Orthology And Links Annotation) is KEGG's internal annotation tool for K number assignment of KEGG GENES using SSEARCH computation. Annotate Sequence in KEGG Mapper and Pathogen Checker in KEGG Pathogen are special interfaces to this server and can be executed in an interactive mode. BlastKOALA is suitable for annotating fully sequenced genomes.

PAGIT: Provides a toolkit for improving the quality of genome assemblies created via an assembly software. PAGIT compiled four tools: (i) ABACAS which classifies and orientates contigs and estimates the sizes of gaps between them; (ii) IMAGE uses paired-end reads to extend contigs and close gaps within the scaffolds; (iii) ICORN for identifying and correcting small errors in consensus sequences and; (iv) RATT for help annotation. The software was mainly created to analyze parasite genomes of up to about 300 Mb.

MAKER: A portable and easily configurable genome annotation pipeline. MAKER allows smaller eukaryotic and prokaryotic genome projects to independently annotate their genomes and to create genome databases. It identifies repeats, aligns ESTs and proteins to a genome, produces ab-initio gene predictions and automatically synthesizes these data into gene annotations having evidence-based quality values. MAKER's inputs are minimal and its ouputs can be directly loaded into a Generic Model Organism Database (GMOD). They can also be viewed in the Apollo genome browser; this feature of MAKER provides an easy means to annotate, view and edit individual contigs and BACs without the overhead of a database. MAKER is available for download and can be tested online via the MAKER Web Annotation Service (MWAS).

MyPro is a software pipeline for high-quality prokaryotic genome assembly and annotation. It was validated on 18 oral streptococcal strains to produce submission-ready, annotated draft genomes. MyPro installed as a virtual machine and supported by updated databases will enable biologists to perform quality prokaryotic genome assembly and annotation with ease.