Case Study: German Rheumatism Research Centre achieves reproducible precision medicine workflows with Seqera Nextflow

German Rheumatism Research Centre processes hundreds of samples in parallel with Seqera

The German Rheumatism Research Centre (DRFZ) faced significant computational challenges in its precision medicine research. These included processing massive datasets that overwhelmed their standard workstations, ensuring reproducibility across multi-year studies, and managing strict data sovereignty requirements. Additionally, the institute struggled with knowledge silos created by ad-hoc scripts and a skills gap for wet lab researchers adopting new workflows. To overcome these hurdles, they turned to Seqera and implemented Nextflow.

By adopting Seqera's Nextflow, DRFZ was able to architect a scalable and reproducible computational ecosystem. The solution utilized modular DSL2 pipelines and containerization with Singularity/Apptainer to solve dependency conflicts. This transformed their infrastructure into an industrial-grade platform that processes hundreds of samples in parallel, maintains long-term reproducibility, and preserves institutional knowledge. The results directly feed their multiomics AI platform and generate automated clinical reports, positioning DRFZ at the forefront of precision medicine research.

German Rheumatism Research Centre (drfz)