No.of Posts:01 (SC)

Pay Scale:

Pay Band of Rs.15600-39100 + Rs.6000/- GP +NPA @ 25% of Basic Pay +Learning Resource Allowance @ Rs.20,000/-P.A.+ Conveyance Allowance @ Rs. 1650/-P.M.+ Academic Allowance @ Rs.2500/- P.M. and other admissible allowances.

Qualifications:

Area of Specialization:-

Bioinformatics/Computational/Biology/Genomics/ Proteomics/ Structural Biology

1. Postgraduate qualification, e.g. Master’s Degree in Biotechnology/Bioinformatics/ Biophysics.

2. A Doctorate Degree of recognized University/Institute in a basic or allied Medical Science subject e.g. Medical Biotechnology/Biophysics. Bioinformatics/X-ray Crystallography/

Immunology/Structural Biology etc

Experience:

1.Minimum three years teaching and/or research experience in a recognized medical/research Institution in an allied medical subject after obtaining doctorate degree and preferably in Medical

Molecular Biology/ Biophysics/Structural Biology/Genomics and Clinical Proteomics/Computational Biology.

2. Minimum two publication with atleast one in international journal and atleast one as first author

Desirable:-

Consistently excellent scholastic/academic record, demonstrated ability to write grant proposal/(s) successfully, Post Doctoral training in a frontier area of medical Bioinformatics Research and of direct relevance to clinical diagnosis or patient care (preferably from a recognized top-ranking medical institution abroad)

Send your applications to O/O, Deputy Registrar, Recruitment & Establishment Cell, University of Health Sciences, Rohtak by 08.7.2014

For more details,please visit website:http://pgimsrohtak.nic.in/2014%20AP%20Advt.pdf

Why Normalize RNA-Seq Data?

Normalization is a crucial step in RNA-Seq analysis for the following reasons:

• Sequencing depth: Different RNA-Seq experiments produce varying numbers of reads, making direct comparisons between samples misleading.

• Gene length: Longer genes inherently generate more reads, irrespective of their actual expression level.

• Bias reduction: Normalization mitigates technical biases, enabling meaningful biological interpretation.

TPM (Transcripts Per Million)

TPM measures the proportion of reads mapped to a transcript, normalized by transcript length and sequencing depth. It is calculated as:

Key Features:

1. Proportionality: TPM values sum to 1,000,000 across all transcripts in a sample, making it easier to compare between samples.

2. Intuitive interpretation: TPM values directly represent the abundance of transcripts in a sample.

3. Preferred for comparisons: TPM facilitates between-sample comparisons better than FPKM.

FPKM (Fragments Per Kilobase Million)

FPKM normalizes read counts by transcript length and sequencing depth, but without enforcing proportionality like TPM. It is defined as:

Key Features:

1. Historical significance: FPKM was one of the first normalization methods used for RNA-Seq.

2. Single-end vs. paired-end: In paired-end sequencing, FPKM becomes RPKM (Reads Per Kilobase Million).

3. Limited utility: FPKM values are not as robust as TPM for cross-sample comparisons due to lack of proportionality.

CPM (Counts Per Million)

CPM normalizes raw read counts by sequencing depth, without considering gene length. It is expressed as:

Key Features:

1. Simplicity: CPM is straightforward and computationally less intensive.

2. Application: Suitable for non-length-dependent analyses, such as comparing total expression levels or differential expression analysis.

3. Gene length agnostic: CPM does not correct for gene length, making it less ideal for measuring expression levels.

When to Use Each Method

• TPM: Best for comparing expression levels between samples, especially when transcript length and sequencing depth vary.

• FPKM: Useful for historical consistency but generally replaced by TPM.

• CPM: Ideal for differential expression analysis when gene length normalization is unnecessary.

Conclusion

Choosing the right normalization method depends on the specific objectives of your RNA-Seq analysis. TPM’s proportionality and robustness make it the preferred choice for most applications, while CPM serves well for differential expression studies. Although FPKM paved the way for RNA-Seq normalization, it has largely been supplanted by TPM in modern workflows. Understanding these methods and their nuances ensures accurate and meaningful interpretations of RNA-Seq data.

References:

1. Li, B., & Dewey, C. N. (2011). RSEM: accurate transcript quantification from RNA-Seq data with or without a reference genome. BMC Bioinformatics.

2. Trapnell, C., et al. (2010). Transcript assembly and quantification by RNA-Seq reveals unannotated transcripts and isoform switching during cell differentiation. Nature Biotechnology.

3. Law, C. W., et al. (2014). voom: precision weights unlock linear model analysis tools for RNA-seq read counts. Genome Biology.

1.Stupid for biologist: Biology is so complex that it will make bioinformatician feel stupid. There are no any universal fixed rules; it can surprise you any time. So be nice to biologists who ask questions and resolve your biological puzzles. Sometime you will have no idea what the hell you were doing either.

2.Puzzling why: Do not hesitate to ask question. Especially. at the beginning of project you will have to ask a lot of questions. Instead of puzzling it out at end check out and clear your doubt even for a single error. It may can leads to wrong conclusion.

3.Running marathon: The most of the biological software’s documentation is always incomplete. In other word they are no more than 95 percent complete. Sometime a single problem can halt your entire project for months. Compilation and running the pipelines in tedious because almost all are interdependent and need proper configuration. I face the same kind of problem with Evolver :( …

4.Folders missing: The pipelines generate lots of data, and we keep them in several folders for future use. But sometime we delete them by mistake and move to recovery…

5.Digging deeper: Digging deeper is fruitful, but some time it can be catastrophic. You may get frustrated or direction less. So keep a biologist with you for rescue …. Sometime an expert computer programmer to handle your server. Remember, the server will always go down when you need it the most.

The most common frustrating  common line: Why do we do this again?

Source:http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp1114866

Another video on precision medicine:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pi8W0yOXnzE

Precision Medicine basically intergrates bioinformatics, genomics , genetics, molecular biology and nanotechnology to deliver precise cure/diagnotics to a specific patient.

Examples:

• The drug imatinib (Gleevec) designed to inhibit an altered enzyme produced by a fused version of two genes found in chronic myelogenous leukemia.
• The breast cancer drug trastuzumab (Herceptin) works only for women whose tumors have a particular genetic profile called HER-2 positive.

E.g. source :

http://www.bionews-tx.com/news/2013/08/15/how-the-impact-of-cancer-genomics-on-precision-medicine-is-revolutionizing-cancer-treatment/

Address of the bookmark: http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=50149783n

Address of the bookmark: http://www.phyloxml.org/

Summary: The application of protein–protein docking in large-scale interactome analysis is a major challenge in structural bioinformatics and requires huge computing resources. In this work, we present MEGADOCK 4.0, an FFT-based docking software that makes extensive use of recent heterogeneous supercomputers and shows powerful, scalable performance of over 97% strong scaling.

Availability and Implementation: MEGADOCK 4.0 is written in C++ with OpenMPI and NVIDIA CUDA 5.0 (or later) and is freely available to all academic and non-profit users at: http://www.bi.cs.titech.ac.jp/megadock.

Contact: akiyama@cs.titech.ac.jp

Address of the bookmark: http://bioinformatics.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2014/08/06/bioinformatics.btu532.short

Address of the bookmark: https://github.com/lh3/psmc

Finally, I find the underlying R code in a file created by GrapheR. For more details read also the package vignette, which is available in English, French and German!

MGI, a subsidiary of global genomics leader BGI Group, announced pricing and its first early access customer for the new ultra high-throughput sequencer, MGISEQ-T7, saying it has driven down sequencing cost to $5 per gigabyte, with exceptionally high accuracy. Such innovations are helping more people to realize the benefits of genomic information.

In October, MGI launched the MGISEQ-T7, a highly flexible production-scale platform that is the most powerful sequencer to date. It can produce as many as 60 whole human genomes in one day. The instrument sells for $1 million.

The T7 enables simultaneous but independent operation of up to four flow cells, which means different applications such as single-cell RNA sequencing, whole exome sequencing and whole genome sequencing can be run in different flow cells at the same time. This helps to reduce costs, allowing MGI to offer the most competitive sequencing price in the market.

Powered by DNBseq™, MGISEQ delivers quality data with accuracy for SNP and Indel calling rate of 99.9% and 99%, respectively, along with decreased duplication rate down to less than 2 percent, and almost zero Index mis-assignment rate.

SOURCE MGI

https://www.bgi.com/global/company/news/bgis-mgi-tech-launches-two-new-ngs-platforms/

http://en.mgitech.cn/

More at http://pythonhosted.org/pybedtools/

A powerful toolset for genome arithmetic.http://code.google.com/p/bedtools/