A technical guide to getting your DNA sequenced without handing the data to a consumer platform: what each tier of testing can resolve, where the error rates live, and how to store and analyze the files yourself.
How to take a raw whole-genome VCF, normalize it correctly, annotate it with VEP plus population and clinical databases, and flatten it into a table you can query in seconds.
How to download the raw genotype file, convert it to VCF against a reference, lift it to GRCh38, impute, score, and know which conclusions the array can and cannot support.
A direct look at blood-chemistry clocks, methylation clocks, and plasma proteins: which markers carry the signal, how to compute biological age from your own lab data, and how much of the number is noise.
A technical account of what blood-based cancer detection measures, where the numbers come from, and how to read cfDNA methylation tests, tumor markers, and routine CBC results without fooling yourself.
A fitness or gym blood panel is only interpretable if you control what you did in the 72 hours before the draw. Here is the panel we would order, the confounders that corrupt it, and how to analyze the results over time.
A technical read on GRAIL's methylation-based multi-cancer early detection test: the assay, sensitivity by stage, and why the NHS trial result matters.
Most consumer wellness DNA tests report array genotypes and low-evidence trait associations. Here is what a genome can and cannot tell a healthy person, which file formats and tools matter, and where the real signal is.
A working guide to lifting positions, VCFs, intervals, and probe manifests between GRCh37, GRCh38, and T2T-CHM13, including which tool to use for each file type and how to tell when the lift silently went wrong.
A glycan age score is a regression of IgG N-glycan peak ratios onto chronological age. Covers what the assay measures and how the number is built.
MTHFR variants are common, their effect on depression risk is small, and the clinically useful signal sits in downstream biochemistry rather than the genotype. How to find your own genotype in a VCF and what to measure instead.
A practical map of the software that turns raw multi-omics files into results you can query, with the commands, formats, and failure modes that matter for a single person's data.
A plasma proteomics report measures the relative abundance of hundreds to thousands of circulating proteins. Here is what the numbers mean, how the three main platforms differ, and how to analyze your own data without fooling yourself.
A working guide to quantifying transcript isoforms from short-read RNA-seq: building a Salmon index, running selective alignment, importing with tximport, testing differential transcript usage with DRIMSeq and DEXSeq, and deciding when the answer requires long reads.
A practical workflow for going from an rsID to a genotype you can trust. Covers resolving coordinates, querying your VCF and checking the reads.
Yes, you can measure CRP at home, but only some kits report the low range that matters for cardiovascular risk stratification. How the assay types differ, what the numbers mean, and how to build a usable time series.
Morning, fasted, rested, and identical from draw to draw. Here is which analytes move across the day, what the 48 hours beforehand do to your numbers, and how to write a draw protocol you can repeat for years.
A technical read on epigenetic clocks, blood-chemistry clocks, and survey-based 'bio age' calculators: what each one measures, how precise it is, and how to compute one yourself from your own data.
A working setup for longitudinal biomarker tracking. Covers a schema that survives lab changes, reference change values and trend fitting.
Two different tests share the name methylation testing: genotyping of one-carbon metabolism genes like MTHFR, and direct measurement of DNA methylation across the genome. This explains what each one measures, how to extract the data yourself, and where the interpretation stops.