Helen Gunter from the BASE mRNA Facility at the University of Queensland in Australia spoke at London Calling 2024 on “Innovations in mRNA vaccine precision manufacturing.” BASE is the largest mRNA manufacturer in Australia, supplying commercial, government, and academic research labs. The plasmid is amplified, linearized, and used as a template to transcribe the mRNA. […]
Tom Walsh from the University of Washington in the USA spoke at London Calling about “Discovery of deeply intronic damaging mutations with nanopore sequencing.” Walsh explained that in the 1990s, genetic testing for predisposition to breast cancer began. In the 200s, additional cancer-risk genes were discovered. Now, there are numerous panels and ten genes for […]
It was great to see Lauren Lui from the Lawrence Berkley National Laboratory present at London Calling 2024 on “An unprecedented metagenomic landscape of European and North American coastal samples.” Lui is a research scientist and, while at Miten Jain’s lab at Northeastern University, loaded 34 PromethION flow cells, generating 5 Tbases of data! Lui […]
“Robbing the array to feed the pore: exploring ultra-fast brain tumor diagnosis” is the title of the session Dr. Simon Paine from Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust in the UK presented at London Calling 2024. What a creative title! Paine is a clinical consultant and neuropathologist. Paine explained that neuropathologists are trying to predict tumor […]
Mike Clark from The University of Melbourne in Australia presented at London Calling 2024 on “Igniting single-cell analysis of full-length RNA isoforms in brain development.” Clark works on RNA isoforms and developing single-cell analysis methods. They noted that almost all human genes express multiple RNA isoforms. Clark emphasized that alternative splicing modifies which exons are […]
Tonight, I watched Tomas di Domenico from the National Cancer Research Center in Spain present at London Calling 2024 on “An (epi-)genomics analysis of drug resistance in multiple myeloma.” Di Domenico explained how multiple myeloma affects the bone marrow and thickens the blood. Multiple myeloma also causes bone issues. There are several treatments and a […]
Tonight, I watched the London Calling EPI2ME product demo: “EPI2ME: democratising bioinformatics—from point-and-click analysis to custom integrations.” Natalia Garcia, a Bioinformatics Workflow Developer with Oxford Nanopore Technologies, explained how workflows use Nextflow and Docker containers. Seventeen workflows were available at the time of the recording during London Calling. Workflows can be run via the command […]
Tonight, I watched the London Calling 2024 session on “breaking boundaries in neurodegenerative disease research.” Cora Vacher from Oxford Nanopore Technologies (ONT) introduced the speakers and facilitated the question and answer session. Joanne Trinh from the Institute of Neurogenetics at the University of Lubeck in Germany was the first presenter. Trinh works with a research […]
Morgan Gueuning from the Blood Transfusion Service in Switzerland presented at London Calling 2024 on “Targeted sequencing of the entire blood group genome by adaptive sampling.” They noted that there are over 45 blood group systems coded by fifty genes and with over 350 antigens. Precise typing and matching are essential to minimize alloimmunization. Current […]
Amanda Warr from The Roslin Institute in the UK presented at London Calling 2024 on “What the cat dragged in: emergence of a highly pathogenic feline/canine recombinant coronavirus.” Warr explained that feline coronavirus (FCoV) is common. In a subset of cases, it mutates once in the cat host. This is called feline infectious peritonitis (FIP). […]











