Project Leaders:   
S. Cenk Sahinalp, Inanc Birol

Lead Institutions:   
Simon Fraser University and Canada’s Michael Smith Genome Sciences Centre

Technology Applications:   
Mathematical modeling, genetic variation

Research Funding Program:   
SOF 1

The goal of the human genome project was to sequence one entire human genome, however, this ‘reference’ genome contains many sequences that differ between individuals. In order to advance towards personalized genomics, scientists must find a way to process and analyze large amounts of sequence to account for the individual sequence differences.

The group of researchers from Simon Fraser University and the BC Genome Sciences Centre will focus on developing novel algorithms and software to analyze the vast amounts of data that the new generation sequencers create. The work will focus on developing a mapping algorithm for single DNA sequence technologies in order to detect structural variations in resequencing experiments.

There is a need within large sequencing centres for new computational tools for analysis of short sequence platforms. This project will allow for detection of the structural sequence variations that are missed with the existing methods of sequence analysis.