Bio Saga Blog - A Chronicle of Life Sciences & Informatics

The nonprofit ECRI Institute has released a BRCA testing information guide for patients interested in learning more about the genetic risk of hereditary breast and ovarian cancer. The guide comes in response to the growing concern and questions among women about the information their genes contain about the risk for cancer, after actress Angelina Jolie wrote an op-ed piece discussing her decision to get a double mastectomy as a result of carrying a BRCA1 mutation associated with heightened risk of hereditary breast and ovarian cancer. There are reports that Jolie's highly publicized and controversial decision has caused a spike among women asking their physicians for BRCA testing. "People can get caught up in the headlines, which can lead to quick, uninformed decisions," says Vivian Coates, VP of information services and health technology assessment at ECRI Institute, in a statement. "Many women may find that after talking to their physicians about their ris

                      -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-                         BI231 NGS Data Analysis                             June 24-28, 2013                       Online at Bioinformatics.Org          http://www.bioinformatics.org/wiki/BI231_NGS_Data_Analysis                    http://www.bioinformatics.org/edu/AGGT -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- OBJECTIVES: This course teaches biologists how to analyze data from Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) platforms. Topics to be covered include the description of sequencing strategies and platforms, experiment types, data formats, and command line tools for various workflows, such as quantification of transcripts, alternative splice forms, copy number variants, single nucleotide polymorphisms, etc. INSTRUCTOR: Shailender Nagpal, M.Sc. is a data analysis consultant in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries and specializes in the