Simon
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I do think we are lucky to have Ian Lipkin and co doing mecfs research, it's not like he's short of other interesting stuff to do - like this (Lipkin has pioneered a lot of viral detection techniques, so he has form in this area).
NEW YORK (Sept. 22, 2015)—Until now, there hasn’t been a fast, efficient way to broadly screen for viral infections. A breakthrough genetic testing method promises change this situation by giving clinicians a powerful new tool to detect and sequence viruses. Developed by scientists at the Center for Infection and Immunity (CII) at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, the Virome-Capture-Sequencing platform for Vertebrate viruses (VirCapSeq-VERT) is as sensitive as the gold standard polymerase chain reaction (PCR) assays while enabling simultaneous testing for hundreds of different viruses and providing near complete sequence of their genomes.
The system and its capabilities are described for the first time in a paper in the journal mBio:
Virome Capture Sequencing Enables Sensitive Viral Diagnosis and Comprehensive Virome Analysis
Captures Viruses Even After They Mutate
The method’s ability to detect a broader swath of the genome is especially useful in screening for viruses, which mutate many times faster than bacteria. VirCapSeq-VERT is able to detect and collect genetic information about viruses even if the sample doesn’t exactly match the probe. According to its developers, VirCapSeq-VERT can detect a novel virus when as much as 60 percent of its sequence doesn’t match the probe. When the suspect virus mutates, the technology is still able to catch it.