Powering Clinical Metagenomics Analysis to Address SARS-CoV-2 Detection

Health disparities and limited access to broadly available and actionable information have exacerbated the rapid spread of COVID-19. This pandemic has underscored the need for new tools to detect, diagnose and monitor emerging pathogens like SARS-CoV-2. The role of co-infections in the presence of SARS-CoV-2 is also driving the need for solutions that go beyond RT-PCR testing, serology and other forms of detection.

A clinical metagenomics approach based on next-generation sequencing (NGS) has proven advantageous in the SARS-CoV-2 context as it led to the initial detection of the virus itself, and accelerated test as well as vaccine development. IDbyDNA’s Explify Platform provides rapid, broad and customizable analysis from an agnostic, scalable suite of analytics and bioinformatics software. IDbyDNA adapted it's Explify Platform for fully automated detection of 35 respiratory viruses and surveillance support for SARS-CoV-2. Together with the Illumina respiratory virus oligo probe (RVOP) enrichment panel, this customized Explify RVOP application provides a complete sample-to-result solution.

Robert Schlaberg, MD, PhD, MPH
Co-Founder, Chief Medical Officer
IDbyDNA

Kelly Hoon
Infectious Disease Specialist
Illumina