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contact Scott Oldham -(soldham@illumina.com)
==2016 proposal==


[[CheckMate]]
[[Citizen Science for Cancer]]


Personal genome sequencing is now available to the masses! An individual human's genome sequence contains 3 billion bases. It can be represented as either a string of characters or as a graph showing where the sequence deviates from a standard, reference genome. Your task is to (1) write a tool to filter/compress such a file into a representation of the genetic status for a (provided) selection of serious diseases of an individual, such that it can be stored on a Raspberry Pi or smartphone, and (2) write a Raspberry Pi or smartphone app that can securely communicate with another to establish whether the two individuals represented share genetic status of any of the diseases considered.
===earlier suggestions===


For bonus points: The genetic details of one individual should not be revealed to the other individual - beyond reporting that the two individuals do or do not share genetic status for one or more diseases.
Proposed client: Lisa Murray
Staff Scientist, Bioinformatics
lmurray@illumina.com


Appendix: Illumina stores variant calls resulting from the sequencing of a genome in a standard format (gVCF) file.  
long-term contact Scott Oldham -(soldham@illumina.com)
Most healthy individuals are carriers of one or more mutations that, if present in two copies (i.e. inherited from both mother and father), would result in a serious disorder (eg 1 in 29 Caucasian Americans carries one mutation in the cystic fibrosis gene : http://www.cff.org/AboutCF/Testing/Genetics/GeneticCarrierTest/).


[[Genomes are fun!]]
Suggestion:


Design and implement a game (on iOs and/or Android) to teach the user about genomes or genomic sequencing, targeted to a GCSE or A level science student. The game should have a strong social element to it.
Genomics Mechanical Turk


One suggested game could be bacterial genetics, where each user has a 'pet bacterium' with certain continuous characteristics, eg shape, size, ability to survive on a wide range of foodstuffs, resistance to antibiotics. Bacteria can exchange parts of their sequence (the social aspect) and the challenge is to evolve the overall fitness of your pet bacterium by interaction and exchange with others. The user can select which small part of the bacterial genome to exchange with a friend. Eventually users will be able to work out which parts of the bacterial genome define which of the characteristics and move up the leaderboard of 'fit bacteria'. (mobile apps, graphics, social networks, no background in biology required)
Analysis of genetic data (genomics) is full of classification tasks that are difficult to solve algorithmically, but which a human expert can often figure out from a quick glance at the data. Even novices have lots of insight to offer into these tasks by bringing novel perspectives and fresh ideas to these complex problems.  Getting lots of people to solve thousands of instances of a problem for you lets you learn general principles from their proposed solutions, which can then be implemented algorithmically to improve.  The trouble with getting people to try to solve a difficult genomics problem is that it’s often a bit complicated, and for most people, not very fun.  But we can change that!  There are several successful games created that help scientists solve tough computational problems, such as Genes in Space (Cancer Research UK) and Foldit (University of Washington).  These programs help researchers identify broken genes in cancers and figure out properties of potential drug targets, both crucial problems that need solving to improve human health.
 
Let’s make genomics fun!  Create a Facebook or mobile game to solve a difficult genomics challenge—identifying tumor-causing cancer mutations. Fundamentally, identifying these mutations is a signal processing problem where the signals are sometimes weak and the noise is variable.  One way to conceive the game would be to imagine a comparison of three pictures: a “reference” picture and two “test” pictures. A player would have to figure out which, if any, of the test pictures look like the reference picture.  All the pictures would be abstract representations of DNA sequencing data. The key will be providing an engaging way of representing this data from raw sequencing input and creating an engaging game from this core concept that people will want to keep playing.  We will provide the “problem data” and suggestions for potential translations into a game setting.
 
==2014 project (prize winner)==
 
* [[Evolve a Pet]]
 
==earlier suggestions==
 
* [[CheckMate]]
 
* [[Genomes are fun!]]

Latest revision as of 18:41, 6 November 2015

2016 proposal

Citizen Science for Cancer

earlier suggestions

Proposed client: Lisa Murray Staff Scientist, Bioinformatics lmurray@illumina.com

long-term contact Scott Oldham -(soldham@illumina.com)

Suggestion:

Genomics Mechanical Turk

Analysis of genetic data (genomics) is full of classification tasks that are difficult to solve algorithmically, but which a human expert can often figure out from a quick glance at the data. Even novices have lots of insight to offer into these tasks by bringing novel perspectives and fresh ideas to these complex problems. Getting lots of people to solve thousands of instances of a problem for you lets you learn general principles from their proposed solutions, which can then be implemented algorithmically to improve. The trouble with getting people to try to solve a difficult genomics problem is that it’s often a bit complicated, and for most people, not very fun. But we can change that! There are several successful games created that help scientists solve tough computational problems, such as Genes in Space (Cancer Research UK) and Foldit (University of Washington). These programs help researchers identify broken genes in cancers and figure out properties of potential drug targets, both crucial problems that need solving to improve human health.

Let’s make genomics fun! Create a Facebook or mobile game to solve a difficult genomics challenge—identifying tumor-causing cancer mutations. Fundamentally, identifying these mutations is a signal processing problem where the signals are sometimes weak and the noise is variable. One way to conceive the game would be to imagine a comparison of three pictures: a “reference” picture and two “test” pictures. A player would have to figure out which, if any, of the test pictures look like the reference picture. All the pictures would be abstract representations of DNA sequencing data. The key will be providing an engaging way of representing this data from raw sequencing input and creating an engaging game from this core concept that people will want to keep playing. We will provide the “problem data” and suggestions for potential translations into a game setting.

2014 project (prize winner)

earlier suggestions