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Adam M Novak

@adamnovak.graphs.vg
466 followers 347 following 228 posts

Bioinformatics Programmer at @ucscgenomics.bsky.social working on #pangenomics. orcid.org/0000-0001-5828-047X

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Reposted by Adam M Novak
Human Pangenome Reference Consortium @humanpangenome.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Shredtools is making it easier to explore regions across a pangenome by quickly finding matching genomic regions across hundreds of genomes. The tool can identify a gene region across 476 human genomes in approximately half a second.  Read more: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
biorxiv.org
Navigating the pangenome coordinate system with Shredtools
Existing notions of pangenome coordinates rely on hard-to-compute multiple sequence alignments. On the other hand, pangenome-wide exact unique matches (multi-MUMs) can be computed efficiently, and rep...
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Reposted by Adam M Novak
Julia Evans @b0rk.jvns.ca · 22/09/2026
periodic reminder that Wizard Zines has an educational use policy if you want to use them in your university courses! wizardzines.com/education/
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Adam M Novak @adamnovak.graphs.vg · 17/09/2026
Always exciting to see software you work on mentioned in a sentence like "We were unable to identify the cause of these discrepancies". Congratulations and apologies to all the #vg users out there; we're so glad you manage exciting research like this because of/despite it.
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Matt Holt @holtjma.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
Our article introducing Aardvark for variant benchmarking is now published in Genome Biology! “Aardvark: sifting through differences in a mound of variants” DOI: doi.org/10.1186/s130... GitHub: github.com/PacificBiosc... Follow along for some highlights… 1/N
doi.org
Client Challenge
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Human Pangenome Reference Consortium @humanpangenome.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
Pangenome coordinates can be complex... Shredtools offers a new approach using exact matches to query pangenome data efficiently. Its tools can extract syntenic regions across hundreds of genomes, making pangenome-scale exploration more accessible. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/42465356/
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
Navigating the pangenome coordinate system with Shredtools - PubMed
Existing notions of pangenome coordinates rely on hard-to-compute multiple sequence alignments. On the other hand, pangenome-wide exact unique matches (multi-MUMs) can be computed efficiently, and represent conserved stretches of columns in the underlying MSA. We introduce Shredtools, which uses mul …
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Simon Fisher @profsimonfisher.bsky.social · 21/08/2026
Hello, human geneticist here. There is no scientific basis for attempts to define people in terms of “good” or “bad” genes - these are discredited views in service of racist ideologies. For consensus & concerns of experts in our field, see e.g. this 2020 statement from @geneticssociety.bsky.social:
Statement from the American Society of Human Genetics in 2020, countering the myth of "good genes". It reads as follows:
"Genetics demonstrates that humans cannot be divided into biologically distinct subcategories or races, and any efforts to claim the superiority of humans based on any genetic ancestry have no scientific evidence. Moreover, it is inaccurate to claim genetics as the determinative factor in human strengths or outcomes when education, environment, wealth, and health care access are often more potent factors. There is no factual basis for attempts to define communities or regions of people with "good" or "bad" genes and a century of science has debunked such claims, which can feed discredited views and racist ideologies. Unchecked, unethical application of false genetic "theories" have resulted in past atrocities from forced sterilizations to the Holocaust and can still fuel unethical social policies worldwide today. Over the decades, our field also has reflected on its own role in such now-condemned ideas, and we speak out vocally as a community and as individuals to combat their resurgence.
We must protect and advance the ethical use of genetics and genomics knowledge for the profound good it can realize, including better, more precise healthcare that leverages what we are discovering about human genetic commonality and diversity. The human genetics community dedicates itself to this goal each day, and today we are improving and saving hundreds of thousands of lives. As the ASHG community focuses on realizing the benefits of human genetics and genomics research for people everywhere, we also urge societal attention to address profound educational, economic and health inequalities that fuel differences in human experience and well-being. By pursuing all of these activities, humans can celebrate our common heritage as one people, embrace and fully tap our valued diversity, and help achieve optimal life outcomes for all."
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UC Santa Cruz Genomics Institute @ucscgenomics.bsky.social · 06/08/2026
We’ve sequenced a marmoset! Grad student @prajnahebbar.bsky.social & @benedictpaten.bsky.social led the effort, and expect it to enable scientists to learn more about genes that contribute to memory loss and Alzheimer's. 🔗https://news.ucsc.edu/2026/08/first-complete-marmoset-genome/
A quote from Prajna Hebbar, graduate student at UC Santa Cruz and lead author on the T2T marmoset paper, reads "Routine T2T genomics is making findings easier... It's great to be in an era where we're not stuck with the technical problems- we can go into the biology and make discoveries relevant to human health." A small monkey is pictured on the side.
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bioRxiv Genomics @biorxiv-genomic.bsky.social · 22/07/2026
HPRC2: A human pangenome reference with near-complete coverage of common genetic variation www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/20…
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Adam M Novak @adamnovak.graphs.vg · 11/07/2026
Since I only get a couple weeks to peer-review papers, what's happening to *my* papers for the several months they're in review at the journal?
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Reposted by Adam M Novak
Shuangjia Lu @lushjia.bsky.social · 07/07/2026
🔥 Does switching to a pangenome reference actually improve your association study? We tested it, and the answer is yes, measurably. Our preprint is online now: "Pangenome-based human genome analysis improves trait association and genomic prediction": doi.org/10.64898/202...
doi.org
Pangenome-based human genome analysis improves trait association and genomic prediction
The Human Pangenome Reference Consortium has generated 462 open-access reference genomes and a variation graph that represents differences among them, providing a substrate for pangenome-based analysi...
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Genetics Society UK @gensocuk.bsky.social · 26/06/2026
Congratulations to Prof Richard Durbin, winner of the 2026 Genetics Society Medal! His pioneering work in computational genomics has transformed how we analyse and understand genome sequences.
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UC Santa Cruz Genomics Institute @ucscgenomics.bsky.social · 26/06/2026
Growing neurons from stem cells—in high school! 🧠 A Genomics Institute platform uses cloud-connected microscopes so students design real stem cell experiments remotely. New study shows it measurably boosts STEM identity, especially for Hispanic & first-gen students. news.ucsc.edu/2026/0...
About two dozen people gather under a sign that promotes innovation at UC Santa Cruz
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Reposted by Adam M Novak
Zamin Iqbal @zaminiqbal.bsky.social · 25/05/2026
This is awful to hear, describing how Sean Eddy (HMMER, infernal, pfam, rfam) has been defunded. The letter said his work "had been determined to be of absolutely no value to the US taxpayer, and therefore it was being specifically terminated," www.npr.org/2026/05/21/n...
npr.org
Researchers say the Trump administration is finding new ways to punish science
Even with federal grants largely restored, scientists say the Trump administration is still preventing those funds from reaching them. The consequences, they say, are already becoming clear.
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AAUP @aaup.org · 12/05/2026
“The message, very clearly, they’re sending is, do not speak out on behalf of Chinese postdocs. If you do, you’re going to pay a penalty...It seems pretty obvious that this is an attempt by the current administration to silence people that question their activities." — Roger Innes, IU AAUP member
chronicle.com
A Professor Defended a Postdoc Who Was Deported. Now His Lab Has Been Suddenly Locked Down.
Work at an Indiana University biology lab was halted amid federal scrutiny, affecting dozens of researchers. “The damage is significant and mounting,” the department chair told The Chronicle.
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Jason Moore @moorejh.bsky.social · 03/05/2026
#dna #captcha
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Adam M Novak @adamnovak.graphs.vg · 04/05/2026
We got "Help me write" in our #UCSC Google Docs and I really can't deal with its little text prompt flashing in and out at the cursor position whenever I stop typing in order to think. I told to our IT that it meaningfully interferes with my ability to write in Google Docs and they can't fix it.
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Quinn Slobodian @quinnslobodian.com · 30/04/2026
earthrise in santa cruz
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Adam M Novak @adamnovak.graphs.vg · 17/04/2026
I feel like this all the time when trying to generate code with Claude Code. I end up spending lots of time reviewing what are supposedly *my own* pull requests for terrible ideas. I want to be reading code written by people *better at it than I am*, and I'm definitely not.
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Adam M Novak @adamnovak.graphs.vg · 09/04/2026
Very happy to see both vg and Sequence Tube Map being used for Sorghum pangenomics! www.nature.com/articles/s41...
A Tube Map style plot of part of the Sorghum pangenome. Transparent grey nodes, representing pieces of DNA, are visited by colored "tubes", representing individual samples, which travel left to right. They are organized vertically in bands that visit similar sets of nodes.
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PinkNews @pinknews.bsky.social · 31/03/2026
Today, March 31st, is International Trans Day of Visibility. In an era of immense difficulty for the community, it can be hard to remember that Trans Day of Visibility is as much about positivity as it is about awareness and resistance.
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Fulcrum Genomics @fulcrumgenomics.com · 24/03/2026
Ever receive a BAM aligned to “GRCh38” and realize that could mean several different references? We just released ref-solver, a tool that identifies the reference genome behind BAM/CRAM/FASTA files by comparing sequence dictionaries to known builds. 🔗 whatsmygenome.fulcrumgenomics.com Read more 👇
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Matt Keeter @mattkeeter.com · 20/02/2026
it has been [0] days since I've tried to emulate 64-bit atomic operations using 32-bit atomic ops in a system with relaxed memory ordering
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Alan McNally @alanmcn1.bsky.social · 17/02/2026
Bit different from our usual work A PhD applying metagenomics to identify microbial plastic degradation and metabolism, fully funded studentship (UK students only). www.findaphd.com/phds/project...
findaphd.com
A metagenomics approach to discover novel plastic degrading microbial pathways at University of Birmingham on FindAPhD.com
PhD Project - A metagenomics approach to discover novel plastic degrading microbial pathways at University of Birmingham, listed on FindAPhD.com
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Reposted by Adam M Novak
Jouni Sirén @jltsiren.bsky.social · 10/02/2026
Our latest vg release introduces GBZ v2 with better compression for sequences. I originally assumed that the total sequence length in a pangenome graph would be similar to the size of the genome. This does not hold in the full HPRC graphs due to unaligned centromeres.
github.com
Release vg 1.72.0 - Littlefoot · vgteam/vg
Don't forget to mark the static binary executable: chmod +x vg Docker Image: quay.io/vgteam/vg:v1.72.0 Buildable Source Tarball: vg-v1.72.0.tar.gz Includes source for vg and all submodules. Use th...
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Andrea Guarracino @andreaguarracino.bsky.social · 06/02/2026
Looking for a postdoc to build my new lab at TGen (Phoenix, AZ) focused on pangenome methods for cancer and complex disease. Full stack — from pangenome assembly and compression to association studies and somatic variant discovery. Reach out if interested! guarracinolab.github.io#join
guarracinolab.github.io
Guarracino Lab | Pangenome Research
We develop methods to build and analyze pangenomes, with applications in cancer and complex disease. Translational Genomics Research Institute, Phoenix, AZ.
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Reposted by Adam M Novak
NativeBio Data Consortium @nativebio.bsky.social · 05/02/2026
Native Bio has made the @nytimes.com for the second time. The #IDsov movement is a tidal wave....and a solution for these difficult times. “We are at a fork in the road. Do not choose hate & do not choose unsustainability.” ~ 21st Century Maxim, Author Unknown www.nytimes.com/2026/02/05/s...
nytimes.com
He Built a Server to Protect Indigenous Health Data
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Prajna Hebbar @prajnahebbar.bsky.social · 03/02/2026
This was such a fun project. Adam's thread on it is a great summary!
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Steve Joffe @stevejoffe.bsky.social · 26/01/2026
Excellent piece about why race is not a biological category and how medical education needs to respond. www.bmj.com/content/392/...
bmj.com
Race is not a biological category: challenging this misconception will help tackle racism in healthcare
Healthcare professionals must reject flawed racial generalisations, writes Jasmeen Kanwal Institutional racism in healthcare has received increased coverage in recent years, including in The BMJ ’s ...
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Adam M Novak @adamnovak.graphs.vg · 14/01/2026
Apply ASAP to be a "Genomics Senior Systems Architect" AKA Linux Herder at @ucscgenomics.bsky.social ! The first test is convincing www.ucsc.edu/careers/ to show you #job number 82880.
ucsc.edu
Careers – UC Santa Cruz
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Adam M Novak @adamnovak.graphs.vg · 12/01/2026
Are #redhat #quay.io Docker container builds down for anyone else? Mine are failing with no logs, and then my trigger gets "automatically disabled due to successive internal errors".
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Reposted by Adam M Novak
Ragnar {Groot Koerkamp} @curiouscoding.nl · 09/01/2026
You find yourself in the middle of a fastq file. You see + and @ all over the place. How do you find the start of the current record?
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Adam M Novak @adamnovak.graphs.vg · 16/12/2025
Did anybody ever actually write up the "Heng Effect" (where adding variants to your pangenome graph can *reduce* its usefulness for samples unlikely to contain those variants)? Or is it just deep vg lore known only in our lab?
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Zamin Iqbal @zaminiqbal.bsky.social · 16/12/2025
Kiddo age 5: daddy you don't work, you just sit at the computer Kiddo age 12: dad you just write grants
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Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution @official-smbe.bsky.social · 16/12/2025
SMBE2026 Symposium 21 | From genomic graphs to evolutionary insights: standardising pangenomes for population inference 📨 Abstract submission smbe2026.org/abstracts 📋 Programme details smbe2026.org/programme #SMBE2026
SMBE2026 Symposium 21 | From genomic graphs to evolutionary insights: standardising pangenomes for population inference
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Qiyun Zhu @zhuqiyun.bsky.social · 11/12/2025
The scikit-bio paper in online in Nature Methods! Many thanks to our collaborators, community contributors and reviewers! We couldn’t have done it without you. www.nature.com/articles/s41... #Bioinformatics #OpenSource
nature.com
Scikit-bio: a fundamental Python library for biological omic data analysis - Nature Methods
Nature Methods - Scikit-bio: a fundamental Python library for biological omic data analysis
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Adam M Novak @adamnovak.graphs.vg · 11/12/2025
I am just hearing that Rust contains a type `Infallible`. Its description, "The error type for errors that can never happen.", sounds like the tagline for someone's next startup. doc.rust-lang.org/std/convert/...
doc.rust-lang.org
Infallible in std::convert - Rust
The error type for errors that can never happen.
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Adam M Novak @adamnovak.graphs.vg · 09/12/2025
This double helix is not double helixing correctly.
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Ewan Birney @ewanbirney.bsky.social · 03/12/2025
One day I will ... write out this database (in a graph orientated, Json compatible data format with Rust bindings). The one graph to rule them all (though @benedictpaten.bsky.social's Cactus graph is pretty darn close to the graph to rule them all from the genomics side)
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Adam M Novak @adamnovak.graphs.vg · 25/11/2025
I found a paper in the wild today where I couldn't click through to the cited references, because the DOIs for them appeared to have been sampled from a large language model instead of actually looked up, producing plausible-looking but wrong links.
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John Wallingford @jbwallingford.bsky.social · 19/11/2025
SAVE THE DATE! Stoked to organize the 2026 Santa Cruz Developmental Biology Meeting with @rashmi-priya.bsky.social, @lowelab.bsky.social, and Shelbi Russell. Come learn about Biomedicine, Biomechanics, and the Biosphere, August 24-28, 2026. Registration dates, etc., coming soon! Please RT
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UC Santa Cruz Genomics Institute @ucscgenomics.bsky.social · 20/11/2025
Now available: vg 1.70.0 release, code name "Zebedassi," with a new "vg describe" tool for inspecting files. 🧪🧬🖥️ github.com/vgteam/vg/re...
vg logo
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Alex Cagan @atjcagan.bsky.social · 07/11/2025
Julie Ahringer from @gurdoninstitute.bsky.social @geneticscam.bsky.social @cam.ac.uk gives talk on decoding genome regulation during development. Exploring how chromatin accessibility changes throughout development enable single cells to become multicellular organisms.
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Adam M Novak @adamnovak.graphs.vg · 07/11/2025
@thinks.lol @khmiga.bsky.social Look you're famous
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David Shiffman, Ph.D. 🦈 @whysharksmatter.bsky.social · 07/11/2025
I think about this post every day 🧪
Screenshot of a Tweet pointing out that academic spam is actually in its own way kind of encouraging.
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Sina Majidian @sinamajidian.bsky.social · 06/11/2025
Haonan Wu gives a talk on "A k-mer-based estimator of the substitution rate between repetitive sequences" www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... This work tackles the issue of Mash which ignores repeats in the genome, providing better distance estimation #GI2025
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Sam Horsfield @samuelhorsfield.bsky.social · 06/11/2025
If you're interested in using pangenome graphs for comparative genomics, check out my webinar, part of EMBL-EBI's "Concepts, methods, and resources in pangenomics" series, available on-demand: www.ebi.ac.uk/training/eve...
ebi.ac.uk
Pangenome graphs as a new paradigm in comparative genomics -
Pangenome graphs as a new paradigm in comparative genomics -
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Tami Lieberman @contaminatedsci.bsky.social · 05/11/2025
If you're looking for a faculty position at the intersection of ecology and computing (both broadly defined), please apply to this joint search between the CEE Department and the College of Computing at MIT: cee.mit.edu/people/share...
cee.mit.edu
Faculty Position in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and the Schwarzman College of Computing - cee.mit.edu
The Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE), together with the Schwarzman College of Computing (SCC) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge MA, seeks candidate...
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UC Santa Cruz Genomics Institute @ucscgenomics.bsky.social · 05/11/2025
Support diversity and excellence in STEM by giving to our Research Mentoring Internship (RMI) this Giving Day 🎁 Federal cuts to DEI grants have made your gifts VITAL to keeping this program alive. Please support student mentorship today: www.givecampus.com/schools/Univ...
A group of students in DNA shirts with the sammy slug mascot
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