Case Study: GENALICE achieves 800-sample, population-scale genome analysis in 60 minutes with Amazon Web Services (AWS)

Genalice - Customer Case Study

GENALICE is a biomedical big‑data startup (20 employees) that develops GENALICE MAP, an NGS data‑analysis suite that quickly detects DNA changes. To enable population‑scale studies rather than single samples, the team built a Population Calling module to analyze cohorts far larger than the previous 500‑sample ceiling. Local servers couldn’t scale to GENALICE’s target of processing 800 Alzheimer’s genomes for a public demonstration, so the company sought a cloud provider with unlimited compute, scalable I/O, and high bandwidth.

GENALICE redesigned Population Calling to run on AWS (EC2 and S3), uploaded 800 genomes, and ran 100 instances in parallel—processing four terabytes of data (800 genomes) in 60 minutes. That performance (one sample per node in ~6 minutes) contrasted with competitors’ joint‑calling approaches that would take days or weeks, and proved a cost‑effective, scalable path for population‑scale genomics. The result opens large‑scale NGS research to smaller institutions and individual researchers and shifts effort from data management to scientific discovery.

Genalice

Jos Lunenberg

Chief Business Officer