Category: Webinar Upcoming

In a few weeks, GenDx will release a brand new version of NGSengine®: NGSengine® 3.1. This version of NGSengine® will contain a handful of new features that will make data analysis even easier! In March, we will introduce these new features to you in a series of two webinars.

In this webinar, Joris Albers B.ASc, Project Manager Software Development at GenDx will explain and demonstrate which new features are implemented in NGSengine® 3.1. Amongst others, these features include:

• a new phasing algorithm
• improved insertion detection and reporting
• improved ignore region management
• new options to display ambiguities in the genotype ranking view
• Extended analysis region for DPB1

Following this webinar, we will host a NGSengine case studies webinar on the 20^th of March. Join us in this NGSengine® webinar series and get familiar with all new features NGSengine® 3.1 has to offer!

Attend the webinar and receive 0.15 continuing education credits (CECs).

HLA genes are highly polymorphic. With the development of Next-Generation Sequencing (NGS) and its ability to type HLA genes at a high resolution level, more and more new alleles are identified. When encountering new or extended alleles, the sequences can be submitted to the IPD-IMGT/HLA database.

In this webinar, Niels Kouprie, Senior Technician at the Laboratory for Transplant Immunology, University Medical Center Groningen, will guide you through the process of submitting a new allele to the IPD-IMGT/HLA database. Mr. Kouprie is already working in the field of HLA typing for more than 30 years and has been involved in the introduction of GenDx Sequencing Based Typing and later Next Generation Sequencing in his lab. Altogether, Mr. Kouprie is responsible for more than 100 new allele submissions to the IPD-IMGT/HLA database.

Attend the webinar and receive 0.15 continuing education credits (CECs).

In this webinar Bram Luiken B.ASc, Project Manager R&D and Sake van Wageningen PhD, Senior Scientist Molecular Diagnostics, will discuss current and upcoming methods to detect HLA loss using qPCR and NGS strategies.

They will explain the principles behind the use of the HLA-KMR qPCR kit for HLA-loss detection. Furthermore, they will show the setup of the kit, explain how you can combine this with your regular chimerism monitoring and walk you through the set up and analysis of HLA loss data in the KMRengine chimerism monitoring software. In addition, an outline is given of our HLA loss product in development for NGS. This product can be used to monitor HLA loss in parallel to our NGS chimerism product; NGStrack. First data obtained at a clinical lab with this prototype will be shared during the webinar.

In the NGSengine case study webinar series, we are dealing with interesting cases of NGS HLA data. We aim for an interactive session while performing an in-depth analysis of the sample.

In this webinar Gabriela de Carvalho Fernandes PhD and Eline ter Steege MSc, Technical Support Specialists at GenDx, will focus on base-variation plots. They will use several cases to discuss what variations of plots you potentially can observe in NGSengine and what it tells you about the sample.

If you register you will receive data files in advance. We ask you to analyze the files and think about what you would report to the clinician. Before the webinar, we would like to receive your feedback by mail so we can address them in the live session (NGSengine trial license available on request).

We look forward to receiving your interpretation of the data!

Attend the webinar and receive 0.15 continuing education credits (CECs).

Deadline for the registration: 12 November

We hereby invite you for the upcoming webinar, in which we will introduce our latest product: NGS-Turbo®.

With a turnaround time of less than three hours and an easy and robust workflow, NGS-Turbo® is designed for HLA typing in situations where time is a critical factor. In combination with Oxford Nanopore Technology sequencing devices, accurate sequencing-based HLA typing results are generated at incredible speed.

In this webinar, Pascal van der Weele PhD – GenDx Project Manager R&D – will introduce NGS-Turbo® to you, discussing the technique and workflow of the product. Additionally, we have invited guest speakers from the HLA typing community that will share their experience with NGS-Turbo®:

12:00-12:45 CEST webinar:  Dr. Volker Oberle (Friedrich Schiller Universität Jena)

12:00-12:45 CDT webinar: Dr. Sam Ho (Gift of Hope Organ & Tissue Donor Network) & Dr. Cathi Murphey (Southwest ImmunoDiagnostics, Inc.)

PLEASE NOTE THAT REGISTRATION FOR THIS WEBINAR WILL CLOSE ON OCTOBER 8.

There are multiple existing challenges for finding an HLA-matched unrelated donor for patients, particularly in nations with diverse populations.

In this webinar, Abeer Madbouly, PhD Principal Bioinformatics Scientist, Biotherapies Lead, Be the Match, will shed some light on why these challenges exist, some efforts to help close this access gap and how the HLA community can help address some of these challenges.

Attend the webinar and receive 0.15 continuing education credits (CECs).

Large stem-cell donor registries contain millions of potential donors. As such, they provide a great resource in finding matched unrelated donors. Yet, regional donors with unique HLA typings and connected to small registries may come to the rescue in specific situations.

In this webinar Eric Spierings, PhD, Associate Professor at the University Medical Center Utrecht and Medical Immunologist at MATCHIS, and Bert Elbertse, MSc, Manager Donor Relations & Communication at MATCHIS will present and discuss the importance of small registries and unique donors, and share donor recruitment stories.

Attend the webinar and receive 0.15 continuing education credits (CECs).

Crohn’s disease is a chronic inflammatory disease of the gut, that is difficult to clinically manage because current therapies are only partially effective. This leads to sub-optimal treatment, extra-intestinal complications and for instance, cancer. DNA methylation profiles in peripheral blood as biomarkers of response/deep remission for three approved biologicals in Crohn’s Disease have been recently discovered and validated by our team. We aim to bring personalised treatment selection in Crohn’s Disease and other IMID to clinical practice to enhance treatment efficacy.

In this webinar, Prof. dr. Wouter de Jonge will discuss our work within our Horizon Europe funded “METHYLOMIC” project, zooming in on Crohn’s Disease. The consortium comprises eighteen participants consisting of clinical, epigenetic, and DNA diagnostics experts, patient organizations, and companies across nine countries to ensure effective communication and commitment to help ease the challenges of patients with Crohn’s disease, Rheumatoid Arthritis and Psoriasis.

Attend the webinar and receive 0.15 continuing education credits (CECs).

In the GenDx Case Study webinars, we share challenging case studies for in-depth data analysis and interactive discussions. This webinar will feature an advanced case appropriate for people familiar with NGSengine.

Attend the webinar and receive 0.15 continuing education credits (CECs).

Important: This webinar will only have a single session, and the timing will be different from our usual schedule, so make sure you don’t miss it!

About this webinar

The highly polymorphic HLA DRB1 locus is associated with both susceptibility and resistance to rheumatoid arthritis. Genome-wide analyses have identified that a DRB1 allele encoding the VKA epitope at amino acid positions 11, 71 and 74 confers the highest risk of developing rheumatoid arthritis, while an allele with the VEA epitope is highly protective. These findings suggest that the K/E dichotomy at position 71 is essential to rheumatoid arthritis susceptibility. Replacing the lysine at position 71 (K⁷¹) in the DRβ1*04:01 allele with glutamic acid (E⁷¹) completely blocked the binding of type II collagen peptide. Transgenic mice were compared with both protein variants. These studies suggest that K⁷¹ of DRβ1*04:01 confers susceptibility to rheumatoid arthritis via binding of arthritogenic peptides, and that editing the position to glutamic acid can impart resistance.

Christina Roark, PhD, F(ACHI) is Associate Director of ClinImmune and is an Assistant Professor at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus. Christina (Tina) received her PhD in Immunology from the University of Colorado. She is a Fellow of the American College of Histocompatibility and Immunogenetics. Her research interests include gene-editing the HLA as a treatment for autoimmunity.

Attend the webinar and receive 0.15 continuing education credits (CECs).

About the webinar

In this webinar, Prof. John Trowsdale, Emeritus Professor at University of Cambridge will give an overview about the immunogenetics of KIR end their interactions with HLA class I.
NK cells are relevant to many kinds of disease, including infections, autoimmunity, cancer, transplantation and reproduction. The behavior of NK cells is controlled by a large number of different cell surface receptors.

Killer Immunoglobulin-like receptors (KIR) are highly variable in expression, gene number and allele sequence in different individuals. Since they interact with highly polymorphic HLA class I molecules, understanding how they impact disease is dependent on accurate DNA typing of both KIR and HLA and evaluation of their interactions. There has been considerable progress in understanding the relationship between inhibitory KIR and HLA-C and, more recently, how activating KIR are sensitive to specific peptides from pathogens. An out-rider, KIR3DL3, appears to have a novel role, interacting with a B7 coreceptor ligand HHLA2.

Monitoring changes in chimerism percentage over time is essential for early detection of possible relapse after transplantation. Several methods have been established in diagnostic laboratories including Short Tandem Repeat (STR)- or Quantitative PCR (qPCR)-based techniques. Recently, we have developed a new way to monitor chimerism by using Next Generation Sequencing (NGS). In this webinar, we will present two GenDx solutions for Chimerism Monitoring: Our qPCR-based KMRtype®/KMRtrack® method, as well as our newly launched NGS-based NGStrack® method. Furthermore, we will compare important aspects for each method such as experimental setup, results quality, and available resources, to make it easier to choose the technique that is most suitable to your laboratory routine.

Chimerism analysis is important for monitoring engraftment and indicating the recurrence of malignant cells after allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation. Highly sensitive methods with a detection limit of recipient cells (equivalents) below 0.1% , e.g. quantitative PCR, can predict a relapse up to 120 days earlier when compared to less sensitive methods. This talk highlights the importance of assessing the dynamics of chimerism in the low percentage range (below 1%) for the prediction of a relapse. A classification of different chimerism kinetics with their reasonable underlying causal effects are shown together with some examples. The pros and cons of bone marrow samples versus peripheral blood sample in the context with high sensitive chimerism analysis methods are discussed.

Attend the webinar and receive 0.15 continuing education credits (CECs).

In this webinar, we will explore our NGS solution for chimerism monitoring: NGStrack reagents and TRKengine analysis software. Maaike Rijkers PhD and Hannah Monsuur PhD will introduce the reagents and analyse NGStrack-generated data in TRKengine. We will have the opportunity to get familiar with the software analysis flow and data interpretation.

Attend the webinar and receive 0.15 continuing education credits (CECs).

The genetic diversity of the Quebec province regions comes from its rich settlement history and complexifies compatible stem cell donor searches in international registries.

In this webinar, William Lemieux PhD, Postdoctoral Research Fellow at RI-MUHC, will present a study where allele and haplotype frequencies in the province of Québec are analyzed to inform on the region stratification of HLA and on the current diversity of the registry.

Attend the webinar and receive 0.15 continuing education credits (CECs).

About the webinar

In this webinar, we will show step-by-step how to set-up your NGSengine analysis settings in order to analyse NGS data generated based on our NGSgo-AmpX KIR amplification strategy. We will also explore KIR data generated in-house.

Attend the webinar and receive 0.15 continuing education credits (CECs).

In the context of the World Marrow Donor Day, we will have a webinar special session to raise awareness for the importance of stem cell donation. Save the date!

Speaker for the Chicago/CDT session: Jason Dehn, MPH, CHTC Director, Vendor, and Biorepository Services at Be The Match foundation.

Speaker for the Amsterdam/CEST session:  Martijn Braakman MSc, Immunogenetic consultant – Expertise Center at Matchis.

In the GenDx Case Study webinars, we share challenging case studies for in-depth data analysis and interactive discussions. This webinar will feature an advanced case study appropriate for people familiar with NGSengine.

You will receive data files in advance. We ask you to analyze the data and think about what you would report to the clinician. Before the webinar we would like to receive your answers and questions on education@gendx.com so we can address them in the live webinar. A trial license is available on request.

Attend the webinar and receive 0.15 continuing education credits (CECs).

About the webinar

The non-conventional MHC class I gene MICA encodes a single-chain stress-induced highly polymorphic MHC class I molecule located within the MHC in close vicinity to HLA-B. It binds to the activatory immune-receptor NKG2D.

In work presented here we report irrefutable data which define MICA as a novel histocompatibility antigen in kidney transplantation.

Attend the webinar and receive 0.15 continuing education credits (CECs).

HLA typing  is based on analyzing the DNA sequences of HLA genes. In the interpretation, we generally use rule-of-thumb such as “inserts in the coding region of an allele results in a null allele”.

In this webinar,  Erik Rozemuller PhD, Senior Scientist Bioinformatics and Hanneke Merkens PhD, Associate Director Business Development will show that there are exceptions in many of these rules.

Attend the webinar and receive 0.15 continuing education credits (CECs).

In this NGSengine case study webinar, we are dealing with interesting cases of HLA typing results. We aim for an interactive session while performing an in-depth analysis of the sample.

About the webinar

In this webinar Gabriela de Carvalho Fernandes PhD (Technical Support Specialist) and Veerle van Meervelt PhD (Manager Support) will deal with a question that was shared with the GenDx support team.

You will receive data files in advance. We ask you to analyze it and think about what you would report to the clinician. Before the webinar, we would like to receive your feedback by mail so we can address them in the live webinar (NGSengine trial license available on request).

We look forward to receiving your interpretation of the data!

Attend the webinar and receive 0.15 continuing education credits (CECs).

In the NGSengine case study webinar series, we are dealing with interesting DNA samples for in-depth analysis and interactive discussions.

In this advanced NGSengine case study webinar, we are dealing with interesting cases of HLA typing results. We aim for an interactive session while performing an in-depth analysis of the sample.

In this webinar Hanneke Merkens PhD (Associate Director Business Development at GenDx) and Aimi Stavrou PhD (Technical Support Specialist) will deal with two challenging questions that were shared with the GenDx support team. These cases train you on correctly interpreting and understanding ambiguities but also help you recognize artifacts that happened in the lab and are visible in the data.

You will receive data files in advance. We ask you to analyze it and think about what you would report to the clinician. Before the webinar, we would like to receive your feedback by mail so we can address them in the live webinar (NGSengine trial license available on request).

We look forward to receiving your interpretation of the data!

Attend the webinar and receive 0.15 continuing education credits (CECs).

In this combined webinar, Prof. Ellen van der Schoot will present the SNP array approach as is codeveloped by Sanquin, Amsterdam, The Netherlands and will show how this assay is being used for blood group typing.

At GenDx we are currently developing NGS assays for whole gene sequencing of minor blood groups. Amongst other blood groups, we now have prototype typing strategies for Kell, Lewis, Duffy and Gerbich. In this webinar we will give an update on the R&D developments regarding blood group sequencing and will showcase many new alleles we have identified using the long-read sequencing approach of the PacBio Sequel IIe.

Swine have become the preferred preclinical large animal model for transplantation research and potential xenograft donors for clinical transplantation due to their anatomical and physiological similarities to human. Compatibility of the swine MHC, or the swine leukocyte antigen (SLA), is among the most important immunological determinants in the setting of allo- and xeno-transplantation. In this webinar, we will review the current knowledge of the SLA system and its allele polymorphism and haplotype diversity characterized to date. We will also examine the importance of the SLA genes and proteins for the use of pigs as a routine large animal transplant model and a potential source of xenogeneic organs for human transplantation.

Advancements in antibody testing and HLA genotyping has greatly improved our understanding of the HLA compatibility between patients and donors.

However, development of donor-specific antibodies and long term allograft survival are not equally improved and the current treatment strategies seems to have reached a plateau. Conventional HLA compatibility is based on a method that does not account for the immunogenic differences between patients and donors. Molecular HLA compatibility holds the promise to provide a superior compatibility assessment. Retrospective studies have demonstrated that, by taking into account the amount of donor-derived HLA peptides, amino-acids and HLA eplets, the HLA Laboratory can provide a more accurate and patient-dependent risk assessment. By lowering the amount of immunogenic differences between patients and donors, the risk of de-novo DSA and rejection can be greatly reduced. In this presentation, the current molecular HLA compatibility assessment tools, their predictive power and clinical applications will be examined and discussed.

In the past, the GenDx HLA amplification strategies have been validated on the MiSeq Illumina and Ion Torrent platform. Continuous improvements of sequencing platforms and the development of multiplexed amplification strategies challenged us to compare all platforms once more: Are the long read sequencers outperforming the short reads or are these still the golden standard?

In this webinar Sake van Wageningen will share the results of our platform comparison studies in which the NGSgo-MX11-3 typing kit was used for the amplification of 11 whole gene HLA loci on 58 Coriell samples and the amplicons were subsequently used in library preparation for 5 different sequencing platforms.

• MiSeq (Illumina)
• Ion S5 (Thermo Fisher)
• Sequel II (Pacific Bioscience)
• MinION (Oxford Nanopore Technologies)
• DNBSEQ-G400 (MGI)

Please join us for this webinar to hear all about our findings and what to consider when choosing a platform for HLA typing in your lab.

In this webinar GenDx founders, Wietse Mulder PhD and Erik Rozemuller PhD, will elaborate on the feasibility of Nanopore sequencing strategies for both research and diagnostics purposes in the field of transplantation. They will discuss its current and potential applications, and they will also address the conflicting request concerning accurate versus rapid HLA typing. Laboratory results will be shown of actual Nanopore data generated with NGSgo® reagents and analysed by NGSengine® software.

Attend the webinar and receive 0.15 continuing education credits (CECs).

We associate immunity with the eradication of potentially harmful intruders. How is it possible that fetal cells, partially foreign to the mother as they contain 50% DNA of the father, can invasively connect to the maternal circulation?

November 10, Noon -12:30 CET/CST

We studied the specialized characteristics of immune cells of the womb. Valuable information on locally involved cells can be obtained through isolating cells from menstrual blood and placental tissue, circumventing invasive biopsy. Cells of the fetal-maternal interface present with unique properties that cannot be observed in blood samples. Specialized tolerance-inducing cells are able to dampen inflammatory reactions within the uterus. Even though small in numbers, the studied cells appear to have a key role in pregnancy by interacting with major other immune cells of the uterus. Another small, yet meaningful component of the uterus deserves more attention: the microbiome. We describe how fine-tuning of uterine immunity is achieved by naturally-present microbiota.

Attend the webinar and receive 0.15 continuing education credits (CECs).

In this webinar series, we deal with case studies for in-depth data analysis and interactive discussions.

You will receive data files in advance. We ask you to analyze the data and think about what you would report to the clinician. Before the webinar, we would like to receive your answers and questions on education@gendx.com so we can address them in the live webinar. NGSengine® trial license is available on request.

We look forward to receiving your interpretation of the data!

Attend the webinar and receive 0.15 continuing education credits (CECs).

Did you know that September 18th is World Marrow Donor Day?
To honor this day and create awareness, we are hosting a webinar on stem cell donation.

September 15, Noon -12:30 CDT (19:00-19:30 CEST)

About the webinar
Jason Dehn, MPH, CHTC Director, Vendor, and Biorepository Services at Be The Match foundation will go into detail to explain everything you want to know about stem cell transplantation and the importance of having more donors.

Join us for this webinar and help us in our goal to raise awareness on the importance of stem cell donation. You will also receive 0.15 continuing education credits (CECs).

Evolution and subsequent selection have had its effects on the MHC and KIR gene families in humans and non-human primate species. For instance, rhesus macaques, an animal species applied in preclinical research to model human diseases, have a diverse MHC and KIR repertoire. This diversity is reflected by extensive copy number variation, allelic polymorphism, high sequence homology, and expansion and contractions of haplotypes, which may complicate the genomic characterization. The PacBio sequencing platform allows us to efficiently characterize the MHC and KIR transcriptome in different primate species and identify novel genes and alleles. By using a family-based study design, we are able to define MHC and KIR haplotypes from segregation analysis.

In this webinar, we will deal with case studies for in-depth data analysis and interactive discussions. You will receive data files in advance. We ask you to analyze the data and think about what you would report to the clinician. Before the webinar, we would like to receive your answers and questions on education@gendx.com so we can address them in the live webinar. NGSengine trial license is available on request. We look forward to receiving your interpretation of the data!

Attend the webinar and receive 0.15 continuing education credits (CECs).

Reliable NGS-based HLA typing requires high-quality reads of sufficient length to resolve ambiguities. Short read sequencing has the advantage of being of high quality, however, it can sometimes hamper unambiguous HLA typing due to limited phasing. The quality of long read sequencing has tremendously improved over the past few years and enables phasing over longer distances.

In this webinar, Cheryl Heiner PhD, Principal scientist at Pacific Biosciences and Arnoud Schmitz BASc, Field Application Scientist at Pacific Biosciences will introduce the PacBio Sequel II System for long read sequencing. Next, Sake van Wageningen PhD, project manager R&D at GenDx, will show how generating long, high-quality reads contribute to full phasing, a constant depth of coverage and low noise levels, allowing for reliable HLA typing with limited ambiguities.

Attend the webinar and receive 0.15 continuing education credits (CECs)

Among many mechanisms of immune evasion by tumors, loss of HLA proteins may serve as one way in which aberrant cells “hide” from immune surveillance. While these events may be rarely seen by any individual HLA laboratory, they can and do happen. In this webinar, we’ll examine a real example of HLA mutation in a bone marrow transplant case from my laboratory. Then we’ll delve into the current literature related to somatic mutations in HLA genes to put this case in context

Attend the webinar and receive 0.15 continuing education credits (CECs).

You will receive data files in advance. We ask you to analyze the data and think about what you would report to the clinician. Before the webinar we would like to receive your answers and questions on education@gendx.com so we can address them in the live webinar. (trial license available on request) We look forward to receiving your interpretation of the data!

Attend the webinar and receive 0.15 continuing education credits (CECs).

Post-transplant monitoring of the recipient chimeric state is essential for the early detection of relapse after stem cell transplantation. Currently, monitoring is mainly performed through STR or qPCR testing. For STR, its laborious nature and low sensitivity are disadvantages. While qPCR is considerably less effort to perform and results in higher sensitivity, each monitoring experiment requires a recipient pre-transplant sample.

Performing chimerism monitoring by next-generation sequencing (NGS) allows for the sensitive detection of markers, without requiring pre-transplant DNA for each monitoring experiment.

In this webinar, we will present to you NGStrack® and TRKengine®, which will enable you to perform chimerism monitoring by NGS. We will go into the NGStrack® product design, the laboratory workflow and assay performance from analytical and proficiency studies. In addition, a preview is given of TRKengine®, the novel software package in development for the analysis of NGS based chimerism results.

Attend the webinar and receive 0.15 continuing education credits (CECs).

In this webinar Elja Louer PhD, Technical Support Specialist at GenDx, will deal with case studies for in-depth data analysis and interactive discussions. You will receive data files in advance. We ask you to analyze the data and think about what you would report to the clinician. Before the webinar we would like to receive your answers and questions on education@gendx.com so we can address them in the live webinar. (trial license available on request) We look forward to receiving your interpretation of the data!

Attend the webinar and receive 0.15 continuing education credits (CECs).

Elja Louer PhD

Technical Support Specialist at GenDx

Step-by-step explanation by Remco Malestein B.ASc how to start using NGSengine

Attend the webinar and receive 0.15 continuing education credits (CECs).

Remco Malestein B.ASc Technical Application Specialist

Are you familiar with the concept of epitope matching in solid organ transplantation? More specifically, are you familiar with PIRCHE? PIRCHE stands for Predicted Indirectly Recognizable HLA Epitopes and models the indirect pathway of T-cell mediated allorecognition of mismatched HLA.

In this webinar Dr Eric Spierings, Associate Professor, inventor of the PIRCHE concept, and Matthias Niemann, PIRCHE Director of Technology, will introduce the epitope matching landscape, show how the PIRCHE algorithm integrates into the wider context of existing epitope matching models, and explain what makes it different from other models with which you may already be familiar.

To give you a practical insight into how PIRCHE matching is applied on a case-by-case basis in the solid organ transplantation setting, they will present a case study showing how PIRCHE matching may be applied in kidney transplantation. This session will be concluded with some recent insights into PIRCHE epitope matching.

We look forward to seeing you there and introducing you to the wonderful world of PIRCHE!

Dr Eric Spierings, Associate Professor, Director of the HLA tissue typing lab UMC

Matthias Niemann, Director of Technology PIRCHE

Attend the webinar and receive 0.15 continuing education credits (CECs).

In this webinar we will deal with challenging case studies for in-depth data analysis and interactive discussions.

You will receive data files in advance. We ask you to analyze the data and think about what you would report to the clinician. Before the webinar we would like to receive your feedback on education@gendx.com so we can address them in the live webinar (trial license available on request). We look forward to receiving your interpretation of the data.

Attend the webinar and receive 0.15 continuing education credits (CECs).

In this webinar, Dr. John Trowsdale PhD and Sake van Wageningen PhD will discuss the genetics of MR1, the  functions of the MR1 protein, the new findings on the polymorphism, and the potential clinical relevance.

Non-classical MHC class I genes, also known as MHC class Ib genes, have few alleles and are considered oligo- or even monomorphic. MHC class I-related protein (MR1) is a non-classical MHC gene that does not reside on chromosome 6 but instead is on chromosome 1. In spite of this, MR1 shares greater homology with classical MHC-I genes than it does with other MHC-Ib genes. The structure of MR1 is that of a typical MHC class I gene, with exon 1 coding for a leader peptide and exons 2-4 coding for extracellular domains that can bind an antigen. Exon 5 and 6 are coding sequences for the transmembrane and cytoplasmic domains. Recently, MR1 was highlighted as a monomorphic, pan-cancer, pan-population target for immunotherapies. Despite the monomorphic classification of MR1 multiple SNPs in MR1 can be found in SNP databases. We developed a MR1 specific PCR assay and sequenced DNA samples from a diverse set of HLA genotypes. In this relatively small panel we found multiple alleles encoding for different MR1 proteins.

In this webinar, we will deal with challenging case studies for in-depth data analysis and interactive discussions.

You will receive data files in advance. We ask you to analyze the data and think about what you would report to the clinician. Before the webinar, we would like to receive your answers and questions on education@gendx.com so we can address them in the live webinar (trial license available on request).
We look forward to receiving your interpretation of the data!

Attend the webinar and receive 0.15 continuing education credits (CECs).

As HLA typing lab, you might consider moving to NGS as a method for HLA typing. What are the advantages and what are the factors to consider when making such a move. We will discuss instrumentation, ancillary equipment and other less obvious factors to make an informed decision.

Attend the webinar and receive 0.15 continuing education credits (CECs).

We are thrilled that Dr. Jill A. Hollenbach, PhD, MPH, Associate Professor Neurology at the UCSF Weill Institute for Neurosciences has accepted our invitation to share new insights on High-resolution KIR sequencing in neurological diseases. A major focus of her laboratory’s work is building software tools designed to overcome the challenges associated with complex genomic regions like KIR in order to take advantage of the low cost, high-throughput and high fidelity of short read next-generation sequencing (NGS) methods and to effectively mine existing whole genome sequencing data. By applying these methods in diverse cohorts of patients with neurological disease, they are gaining new insights into the immunological underpinning and pathogenesis of diseases such as multiple sclerosis and Parkinson’s disease.

Natural killer (NK) cell mediated immunity is a key component of the first line of defense against viruses and tumors. The killer immunoglobulin-like receptors (KIR) are a family of receptors expressed on NK cells and a small percentage of T-cells where they interact with tissue/cell human leukocyte antigen (HLA) molecules to regulate cell killing and cytokine responses. A balance between inhibitory and activating KIR helps ensure that NK cells develop to be tolerant of healthy autologous cells and responsive to cells with compromised HLA expression (e.g., in some virus-infected and tumor cells). Located on human chromosome 19q13.4, the KIR gene complex displays considerable heterogeneity in gene content; KIR haplotypes contain from 4-14 genes and have considerable variation between individuals and populations. Superimposed upon this gene-content variation is a remarkably high level of allelic polymorphism, with an unusually high density of polymorphic sites. Importantly, this genetic diversity directly affects the functional properties of NK cells. Variation in KIR genes is known to affect expression levels and signaling properties of the KIR molecules, as well as the strength and specificity of interaction with HLA. The combination of high levels of both gene-content and allelic variation coupled with extensive homology between all loci has until recently been a barrier to detailed interrogation of the region.

By attending our webinars you can receive 0.15 continuing education credits (CECs).

You will receive data files in advance. We ask you to analyze the data and think about what you would report to the clinician. Before the webinar we would like to receive your answers and questions on education@gendx.com so we can address them in the live webinar. (trial license available on request) We look forward to receiving your interpretation of the data!

Attend the webinar and receive 0.15 continuing education credits (CECs).

In the last webinar of the May series we will deal with challenging case studies for in-depth data analysis and interactive discussions.
This webinar, Hanneke Merkens PhD (Associate Director Support & Education, GenDx) and Erik Rozemuller PhD (Senior Scientist Bioinformatics, GenDx) will use samples of two loyal webinar listeners.

You will receive data files in advance. We ask you to analyze the data and think about what you would report to the clinician. Before the webinar we would like to receive your answers and questions on education@gendx.com so we can address them in the live webinar. (trial license available on request) We look forward to receiving your interpretation of the data!

Attend the webinar and receive 0.15 continuing education credits (CECs). Fill out the survey after the webinar to apply.

The DR locus of the class II HLA region is unique. Compared to the other classical class II HLA molecules, HLA-DQ and HLA-DP, each of which has a single, polymorphic locus encoding for the alpha and beta chains, the HLA-DR molecule is comprised of an essentially monomorphic alpha chain, and multiple, polymorphic loci that encode for the beta chain. Additionally, there is variability in the number of loci encoding for the beta chains, with either one or two HLA-DRB loci per chromosome. This genetic complexity can lead to challenges in typing HLA-DR for clinical purposes.

In this webinar Dr. Nicholas Brown will discuss the genetic structure of HLA-DR, and discuss how the complexity can be managed.

Assessment of immunologic risk in solid organ transplantation is one of the primary functions of an HLA laboratory. The risk assessment is based on the cumulative interpretation of multiple assays used to measure HLA antibodies and the believed understanding of HLA in the allograft. What is not well recognized is the degree of variability in HLA molecules immobilized onto Luminex single antigen beads, variable HLA expression on T and B lymphocytes used in cell-based crossmatches, and biologically encoded differences affecting in vivo HLA expression. Variable HLA expression is therefore inherent across all assays used in HLA laboratories as well as donor HLA targeted by recipient HLA antibodies.

In this webinar, Dr. Hidalgo will provide a brief overview of these concepts and how they impact the interpretation of immunologic risk in transplant recipients. Live chat will be open for your questions or comments

In the third webinar of the series we will deal with challenging case studies for in-depth data analysis and interactive discussions.

-Live discussion of NGS data
-Tips and tricks

NEW! Attend the webinar and receive 0.15 continuing education credits (CECs).

In the third webinar of the series we will deal with challenging case studies for in-depth data analysis and interactive discussions.

-Live discussion of NGS data
-Tips and tricks

NEW! Attend the webinar and receive 0.15 continuing education credits (CECs).

In the second webinar of the series, discover the basic principals of the NGS workflow and see how data analysis in NGSengine® works.

-NGSengine® software demo
-Tips and tricks for effective data analysis
-Demonstration of a GenDx case study

NEW! Attend the webinar and receive 0.15 continuing education credits (CECs).

In the first webinar of the series, discover the basic principals of the NGS workflow and see how data analysis in NGSengine® works.

-Introduction about high-resolution HLA typing with NGS
-NGS workflows for HLA typing

NEW! Attend the webinar and receive 0.15 continuing education credits (CECs).

At GenDx we strive for fast and easy sequencing-based HLA typing. Using a multiplexed PCR strategy significantly reduces pipetting steps and hands-on time. In this webinar, Sake van Wageningen PhD, Project Manager R&D, will present the GenDx multiplexed strategies and give a development update on our latest 11-loci multiplex product. He will also demonstrate how multiplexed data is analyzed in NGSengine.

NEW! Attend the webinar and receive 0.15 continuing education credits (CECs).

Incomplete HLA genes in the IMGT database can form a challenge in data analysis. In this webinar, Maarten Penning, Chief Technology Officer, will explain how the NGSengine software handles incomplete alleles. Using case studies directly from the field, he will show examples of the benefits and challenges of extrapolated data, and how to interpret your results when no extrapolated data is available.

Topics to be discussed:
• Extrapolated data explained
• NGSengine case studies from the field

Live chat will be open for your questions or comments

NEW! Attend the webinar and receive 0.15 continuing education credits (CECs).

Register to webinar 12.00-12.30 pm CET (Amsterdam, NL) via this link
Register to webinar 12.00-12.30 pm CST (Chicago, IL, USA) via this link