Machine Learning-Assisted Variant Calling — ML-Based Genomic Variant Detection

Machine learning-assisted variant calling uses statistical learning models — most notably convolutional neural networks — to distinguish genuine genomic variants (SNPs, indels) from sequencing artifacts in aligned short- or long-read data. Unlike heuristic callers that rely on hand-crafted filters, ML-based approaches learn directly from large labeled datasets of validated variants, improving sensitivity and specificity across diverse sequencing platforms and coverage depths. Google's DeepVariant (2018) is the landmark implementation that brought deep learning into mainstream variant calling.