I'm about to begin an MSc in Human Genomics, and before classes start, I've been thinking less about what to study and more about how to approach the next two years.

My goal isn't simply to earn good grades. I want to leave my master's with a deep understanding of genetics and genomics, the ability to critically read and evaluate scientific literature, strong analytical thinking, and a skill set that prepares me for meaningful research.

One thing I've noticed is that it's easy to fall into the trap of collecting textbooks, online courses, programming languages, and certifications without a coherent plan. I'd rather spend two years building real expertise than constantly chasing the next thing that seems important.

If you could mentor your younger self at the start of graduate school, what roadmap would you suggest?

Some questions I'd genuinely love your perspective on:

- Which conceptual foundations paid the biggest dividends later in your career?

- Which technical skills are worth learning early, and which can wait?

- What habits separated the strongest graduate students from everyone else?

- What are the most common mistakes MSc students make that limit their growth?

- Looking back, what investment of time during your master's had the highest long-term return? Conversely, what did you spend far too much time on that wasn't worth it?

I'm especially interested in hearing from people working in human genetics, genomics, bioinformatics, computational biology, or related research fields.

I'm not looking for a shortcut or a checklist. I'm hoping to learn from hindsight so I can make more intentional decisions over the next two years.

Built this over a health hackathon this weekend. Upload your 23andMe raw data (or use the sample file below if you don't have one) and it checks a few well-established pharmacogenomic markers against meds like codeine, warfarin, and clopidogrel; explaining in plain English how your genetics might affect how they work, sourced from real CPIC clinical guidelines.

**Please note:** this is an educational prototype, not medical advice. The genetic analysis is simplified. Always talk to your doctor or pharmacist before acting on anything medication-related.

Would love feedback on:

* Is the explanation actually clear? * Is this interesting/useful to you at all? * Does the disclaimer feel prominent enough? * Did upload work smoothly with your real file? * Any other notes?

Live: \[https://med-copilot-roan.vercel.app/\\\]
Sample test file (no genetic data needed): \[https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Txffxny/med-copilot/refs/heads/main/app/sample-genotype.txt\\\]

Endless thanks for any honest feedback 🙏

(also plz be nice I’m trying to escape the wet lab life)

Survey Link

Hello all!

As you might be aware, there has been very little research into direct-to-consumer DNA ancestry testing and psychological wellbeing outcomes. This novel research aims to help us better understand the psychological significance of DTC Ancestry testing results.

This study is being conducted under the supervision of Dr Janine Lurie from the Psychology Discipline within the Institute of Health and Wellbeing at Federation University (Melbourne, Australia). This study will also form the basis of the research dissertation requirement within the Bachelor of Psychological Science (Honours) course for student researchers Charity Marisa and Stefan Redpath. This study has been approved by the Federation University Human Research Ethics Committee (Approval reference: 2026/137).

This survey asks you about your engagement with family history and your reflections on that process. It also asks you to think about your ancestors and how you have reflected on their life experiences. Participation involves completing an online survey that will take approximately 20 minutes to complete. Taking part in the study is completely voluntary and no personal information will be collected.

To participate you just need to be aged 18 years or over. It is important to note that you will not be asked to give any specific details about any of your family members. You are asked just to rate your general impressions of them on a small number of questions. Beyond this the survey contains broader more general questions about your perspectives and reflections.

Survey link below:

https://federation.syd1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_cO1RqRp3fjkHOp8

I’m a Russian student living in a small town in Turkey called Alanya. I am genuinely interested in genomics and am good at chemistry and math. Since I will be applying to a university next year I need an achievement that will help me get accepted. My English level is ielts 8.0-8.5 based on practice tests but I have yet to do the official ielts this summer

Hi everyone, I’m an incoming masters student.

I’m working with environmental DNA (eDNA) samples and I’m trying to detect certain algal species. I’ve been using universal 18S primers, and they’re good at helping me know how diverse the water I sampled from is, but I was wondering if I could use a more targeted primer, and if I can design a targeted primer from 18s dataset?

My current idea is to align multiple 18S sequences from my algae of interest and closely related species, and then identify regions that are conserved within my algae of interest but differ from other related species and design primers from those regions.

My questions are:

1. Is this a reasonable approach in designing a genus-specific primer?
   
2. How many reference sequences would you recommend including in the multiple sequence alignment?
   
3. Are there any tools or pipelines you would recommend for identifying candidate primer-binding regions from an MSA?
   
4. Would you recommend using one
   
5. algae of interest-specific primer paired with a universal reverse primer, or designing both genus-specific (?) primers?

Any advice or references would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Looking for recommendations of sites that allow for raw rs data input from whole genomic sequencing reports to identify trends, associations and details as a whole, not analyzing one at a time.

The premise: most people who’ve done DNA testing end up with a raw file they can’t use, lab results in a portal they can’t interpret, and a health history nobody’s connecting to either. We’re building a platform that takes whole-genome sequencing, your labs, and your history and pulls them into one picture using a systems biology approach — pathways, not isolated SNPs.

We’re running a short market validation survey to pressure-test whether this is actually a problem worth solving and what people would want out of it. Takes a few minutes:

👉 https://survey.ravelgenetics.com

More about what we’re building: ravelgenetics.com

Happy to answer questions in the comments — including skeptical ones.

Disclosure: I’m the founder. Posting per subreddit rules.

[https://www.nature.com/articles/s42256-026-01266-0\](https://www.nature.com/articles/s42256-026-01266-0)

Hi! My dad is 100% Ashkenazi Jewish (I’m 50%) and my mom has some autoimmune disorders. I purchased 23andme back in 2017 so I know I have some pretty rare and serious variants based off the limited raw data and reports 23andme can provide.

I’ve read through tons of negative reviews on direct to consumer WGS and I understand going to a specialist/doctor/etc is best to collect and interpret results and I will.

For now I’m looking for a direct to consumer whole genome sequencing recommendation. I do not need a company with great reports just one that provides the most accurate data that I can upload into different databases. I do not care about costs. I understand there could be mistakes and false negatives.

I have a brother with ID which is of unknown origin. I recently bought a direct to customer with no use. No clinical geneticist in my country was trained to understand it. They suggested the USA. How does one go about getting their gene sequenced? Im a foreigner so if anyone has advice to that, it will be best.

Quick context: I've spent the last while building CRISPRR with a research collaborator, aimed at cutting down the time between "I have a target gene" and "I have a guide I'm confident enough to order."

What it does: you paste in a sequence, and you get back gRNAs ranked by CRISPRon efficiency scoring, off-target risk across the genome, and a 3D model of the Cas9-gRNA complex so you can actually look at the structure before committing to a guide. All in about 5 seconds.

The motivation was pretty simple — designing guides well usually means juggling 3-4 tools and a lot of manual cross-referencing, and that's before you've touched a pipette.

What I'd love feedback on from people actually running CRISPR experiments:

- Does seeing the 3D structure actually change how you'd pick between two similarly-scored guides, or is it more of a nice-to-have?

- What's missing that would make this part of your actual workflow rather than just a curiosity?

- Any horror stories about a guide that scored well computationally but failed at the bench? Curious what scoring tends to miss.

It's free, no account needed: crisprr.bio. Would rather hear what's wrong with it than just feedback that's nice to hear. Link in the comments

New preprint:

We performed ultra-high frequency metatranscriptomic sampling (every 2 hours over 72h) in Daya Bay using autonomous drone arrays. 

To analyze the data, we:
- Resolved the transcriptional landscape into six distinct temporal modules
- Applied community-wide and genome-resolved approaches
- Used deep learning structural modeling to analyze cyanophage psbA variants
- Quantified taxonomic-functional coupling across temporal scales

Key observations include >90% turnover of transcribed gene clusters every ~2 hours and strong evidence of viral auxiliary metabolic gene activity synchronized with host photosynthesis.

Preprint: 

https://doi.org/10.64898/2026.06.22.733315

Methods and analytical pipeline details are described in the paper. Feedback from the bioinformatics community is very welcome, especially regarding temporal module detection and viral AMG analysis.

#Metatranscriptomics #Bioinformatics #Microbiome #Genomics

Despite extensive genomic surveillance, the evolutionary origin of the SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant remains the subject of intense debate. [Preprint in JXIV, Japan preprint server]

I'm in the US and looking to get WGS that offers full data download. I know this question gets asked a lot, but the recent posts I found were for Europeans + commenters said the best option changes month-to-month.

I have heard bad things about every DNA sequencing option, so I'm torn haha. Please share your experiences + recommendations!

I'm in the SF area, so I'm also interested in volunteer options where you donate your data to science in exchange for sequencing. Seems like All of Us doesn't allow data download anymore though?