Tag Archives: genomics
Making sense of pangenome networks
Hans Zauner - October 15, 2018
Navigating Pangenome’s Labyrinth In the two decades since the first genomes were sequenced, with the exponential growth of new and closely related genomes it has become increasingly difficult to visualise and compare their structure. Particularly with the large diversity and difference in genes within microbial genomes. A new computational pipeline, published in GigaScience, makes it […]
Toads and toxins: The genome of the invasive cane toad
Hans Zauner - September 24, 2018
The cane toad Rhinella marina is native to Central and South America. But thanks to humans and the sugar cane trade, the species now thrives also in Australia and other places where it doesn’t belong. The invasive species comes with an unpleasant surprise for native Australian predators, such as snakes or freshwater crocodiles: R. marina kills them with its […]
DNA Day in the Jungle. Aaron Pomerantz on #JungleOmics
Scott Edmunds - April 25, 2018
I’m a genomicist, get me into here. Today is DNA Day, commemorating the day in 1953 when Watson, Crick, Wilkins, Franklin et al. published their Nature papers on the structure of DNA, as well as the day in 2003 that the completion of the Human Genome Project was declared. Or at least when the project […]
CRISPR-based Epigenome Editing: Author Q&A with Alun Luo
Scott Edmunds - April 24, 2018
The CRISPR/Cas9 system has opened new horizons in what can be done with genome editing. Here we present an author Q&A with Alun Yonglun Luo discussing his new paper in GigaScience moving this technology towards epigenome editing and testing its efficacy and accuracy. Modulating Methylation: Epigenome Editing With our scope focussing the “biological big data” […]
On the trail of the elusive Solenodon genome. Q&A with Taras Oleksyk
Scott Edmunds - March 19, 2018
Researchers have sequenced the venomous Solenodon, the last survivor of a branch of mammals that appeared at the time of the dinosaurs. Here we give some behind the scenes insight with some of the authors of this prize winning project, and include a Q&A with lead author Taras Oleksyk. Our latest paper presents a draft […]
Apply for GigaScience Scholarships at ConGen 2018
Hans Zauner - March 14, 2018
ConGen (Recent Advances in Conservation Genetics), an international course taught by leading experts in the field, is a fantastic opportunity to learn how the latest genomic and genetic methods contribute to conservation science. Protecting endangered species also means we have to know as much as possible about them. ConGen will bring you up to speed […]
A Christmas Gift To You From GigaScience. Scientists have Unwrapped the Reindeer Genome.
Scott Edmunds - December 12, 2017
A New High-Quality Reindeer Genome Sequence Provides Resources for Studying Evolution, Domestication, and Adaptation to Arctic Climate. But not the secrets of Christmas. Ewan Birney has previously blogged on the Genome Days of Christmas, but today the full-text version of a particularly Christmassy species has just been published to add to that list. Coming so […]
And the winner is? Our #ICG12 prize track on GigaTV
Scott Edmunds - November 27, 2017
Last month was the 7th consecutive year we’ve attended our co-publisher BGI’s annual ICG (International Conference on Genomics) gathering in Shenzhen. While we’ve assisted in organising a number of fun thematic tracks over the years including ICG-8’s crowdsourcing, crowdfunding and open science session, and ICG-10’s community genomics session, for ICG12 this year we decided to […]
Bringing Wildlife Forensics into the Omics Era. Q&A with Alfred Arulandhu and Martijn Staats
Scott Edmunds - September 12, 2017
Sequencers versus the smugglers. CITES (the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora), is one of the largest and oldest conservation and sustainable use agreements in existence, and provides a legal framework for protecting endangered plants and animals around the world. There are roughly 35,000 species listed on the three […]
Guest Blog from Huanming Yang on using the human genome for big-data storage
Scott Edmunds - September 7, 2017
With the current annual data creation rate estimated to be in the tens of zettabytes, the flood of information currently being generated in every area of human life is crashing up against limited data storage solutions. However, DNA, which serves as a storage system for biological information, has been proposed as a potential means to […]