Files
rarelens/docs/data.md
T
Kemal Yaylali 11fb6b3d73 fix: overhaul the platform skeleton, add a serverless deployment track
An end-to-end audit found the repo could not build, test or run as shipped. This
fixes every finding, then adds a Cloud Run track so the demo costs about £1/month
idle instead of ~£150.

CI (red on its first run)
- api: setuptools could not build the package (flat layout with app/ and alembic/)
- web: missing @types/node; `vitest run` exited 1 with no test files
- pipeline: the stub run needed a gitignored VCF, and no process had a stub block
- ruff pinned, mypy configured, DB tests on real Postgres (pgserver locally, service in CI)

ML serving (scores were meaningless)
- the registered model now carries its own feature engineering and returns predict_proba,
  so serving sends raw columns and cannot drift from training
- resolve by registry alias (stages are deprecated in MLflow 3) and record the real
  version; re-scoring upserts instead of failing on the unique constraint
- ClinVar labels parsed from VEP's lowercase terms

Pipeline
- exact ref/alt recovered from a CHROM_POS_REF_ALT VCF ID; loading is idempotent
- job status reaches running/failed/succeeded, so the UI stops polling dead jobs
- DATABASE_URL travels in the environment or a Nextflow secret, never on a command line
- VEP cache and plugins staged as inputs; the gcp profile runs tasks on Google Batch

Deployment
- the API serves /api (matching the ingress); the web app reads its API URL at runtime
- migrations run in an init container under a Postgres advisory lock
- terraform: custom VPC shared with Batch, private Cloud SQL, API enablement, Workload
  Identity bindings, Secret Manager, deletion protection
- serverless track, now the default: Cloud Run services scaling to zero, a Cloud Run job
  for the Nextflow driver, and Neon or Cloud SQL behind one DATABASE_URL secret. GKE and
  Argo remain, behind -var deploy_kubernetes=true. See docs/cloud.md.

Correctness and security
- 409 on duplicate sample names, 422 on bad paging, natural chromosome ordering, wider
  VEP text columns, enum dropped on downgrade, the sample's assembly actually used
- vcf_uri restricted to gs:// objects or files under the data root, blocking option injection
- CORS restricted to configured origins; `make down` no longer deletes volumes

Data
- docs/data.md records the peer-reviewed, openly licensed sources (GIAB HG002, ClinVar,
  gnomAD) with citations and an honest evaluation plan; `make data` fetches a chr22 slice

Verified: api 50 tests, ml 18, loader 16, web 12; ruff, mypy, svelte-check, terraform
validate and both kustomize overlays clean.
2026-09-12 07:21:11 +01:00

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# Data: what rarelens actually runs on
Everything below is public, peer-reviewed and consented for open redistribution. No patient data,
no data access agreement, nothing that needs an application. These are the references to quote
when showing the platform to someone.
Citations were verified against [PubMed](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/); each row links its DOI.
## The demo slice
`make data` fetches two real files, chromosome 22 only (roughly 100 MB, minutes rather than hours):
| File | What it is | Role |
|---|---|---|
| `data/example.vcf.gz` | GIAB HG002 (NA24385) v4.2.1 benchmark calls, GRCh38, chr22 | the sample a scientist annotates |
| `data/clinvar.chr22.vcf.gz` | ClinVar, GRCh38, chr22 | training labels, and the ClinVar column in the UI |
HG002 is the NIST Genome in a Bottle Ashkenazi son, recruited through the Personal Genome Project,
which consents participants to unrestricted public release. It is the reference genome the field
benchmarks variant callers against, so it is both realistic and unambiguously shareable.
## Datasets
| Dataset | Used for | Access | Terms | Citation |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| **ClinVar** (GRCh38) | pathogenic/benign labels, ClinVar column | `ftp.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pub/clinvar/vcf_GRCh38/` | NCBI public domain | Landrum et al., *Nucleic Acids Res* 48(D1):D835D844, 2020. [10.1093/nar/gkz972](https://doi.org/10.1093/nar/gkz972) |
| **Genome in a Bottle** HG002 v4.2.1 | the demo sample | `ftp-trace.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/ReferenceSamples/giab/`, `s3://giab` | open, no use restriction | Zook et al., *Nat Biotechnol* 37:561566, 2019. [10.1038/s41587-019-0074-6](https://doi.org/10.1038/s41587-019-0074-6) |
| **gnomAD** v4 | allele frequency feature and filter | `gs://gcp-public-data--gnomad`, `s3://gnomad-public-us-east-1` | free use, no restriction | Chen et al., *Nature* 625:92100, 2024. [10.1038/s41586-023-06045-0](https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-023-06045-0); Karczewski et al., *Nature* 581:434443, 2020. [10.1038/s41586-020-2308-7](https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-020-2308-7) |
| **1000 Genomes** 30x | optional cohort/trio data | EBI FTP, `s3://1000genomes` | fully open, no access restriction | Byrska-Bishop et al., *Cell* 185(18):34263440.e19, 2022. [10.1016/j.cell.2022.08.004](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2022.08.004) |
| **MANE Select** | one transcript per gene, if transcript choice ever matters | Ensembl/RefSeq | open | Morales et al., *Nature* 604:310315, 2022. [10.1038/s41586-022-04558-8](https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-022-04558-8) |
## Tools and scores
| Tool | Role | Terms | Citation |
|---|---|---|---|
| **Ensembl VEP** 113 | annotation (`pipeline/modules/vep.nf`) | Apache 2.0 | McLaren et al., *Genome Biol* 17:122, 2016. [10.1186/s13059-016-0974-4](https://doi.org/10.1186/s13059-016-0974-4) |
| **CADD** | `cadd_phred` feature | free for non-commercial use; commercial licence required | Rentzsch et al., *Nucleic Acids Res* 47(D1):D886D894, 2019. [10.1093/nar/gky1016](https://doi.org/10.1093/nar/gky1016); Schubach et al., *Nucleic Acids Res* 52(D1), 2024. [10.1093/nar/gkad989](https://doi.org/10.1093/nar/gkad989) |
| **AlphaMissense** | `am_pathogenicity` feature | predictions moved to CC BY 4.0 in March 2024 (originally CC BY-NC-SA) | Cheng et al., *Science* 381:eadg7492, 2023. [10.1126/science.adg7492](https://doi.org/10.1126/science.adg7492) |
Neither score is required: `rarelens_ml.features` treats a missing CADD or AlphaMissense value as
NaN and LightGBM handles it, so the pipeline runs without the plugin data.
## Evaluating the model honestly
The model trains on ClinVar labels and is scored on ClinVar-labelled variants, which is exactly
where published benchmarks go wrong. What to do about it:
1. **Never let the label into the features.** `CLIN_SIG` is excluded by construction; `clinvar_sig`
is stored for display only (`rarelens_ml/features.py` lists the five feature columns).
2. **Split by gene, not by variant.** Random splits put variants from the same gene on both sides,
and a model can then score a gene rather than a variant. Grimm et al. showed this inflates
reported accuracy for exactly this class of tool: *Hum Mutat* 36:513523, 2015.
[10.1002/humu.22768](https://doi.org/10.1002/humu.22768)
3. **Prefer a time-based holdout.** Train on an older ClinVar release (monthly archives live under
`vcf_GRCh38/archive_2.0/`) and test only on variants classified after that date. This is the
closest thing to a prospective evaluation available without new patients.
4. **Filter labels by review status.** ClinVar's `CLNREVSTAT` marks how much evidence backs a
classification; two-star and above ("multiple submitters, no conflicts") is the usual bar.
*Known gap*: VEP's `CLIN_SIG` does not carry review status, so this needs ClinVar annotated as a
custom field before it can be enforced.
5. **Report against published baselines on the same rows.** CADD PHRED and AlphaMissense are
already columns in the variant table, so AUROC and AUPRC for the model next to those two, with
the variant count, is a fair comparison rather than a number with nothing to beat.
6. **Report AUPRC, not just AUROC.** Pathogenic variants are the minority class; AUROC flatters.
## What must not be claimed
ACMG/AMP treats computational predictions as *supporting* evidence only, never sufficient on their
own for classifying a variant (Richards et al., *Genet Med* 17:405424, 2015.
[10.1038/gim.2015.30](https://doi.org/10.1038/gim.2015.30)). rarelens is a learning platform on
public data: it makes no diagnostic claim, and the UI shows a score next to the evidence rather
than a verdict. For what a real diagnostic pipeline looks like end to end, see the 100,000 Genomes
Project rare-disease pilot: Smedley et al., *N Engl J Med* 385:18681880, 2021.
[10.1056/NEJMoa2035790](https://doi.org/10.1056/NEJMoa2035790)