Automated Sequencing Analysis Tool for Infectious Disease Diagnostics

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SELECTBIO

The Zova Systems team has worked on automated sample prep, eukaryotic and bacterial DNA separation kits and data analyses pipelines to facilitate the use of Next-Gen Sequencing (NGS; e.g. 454, HiSeq, IonTorrent, PacBio) for comprehensive microbial species identification. For fast, robust data analysis we have developed ZovaSeq, an analysis pipeline and relational database that can be operational wholly contained on a laptop or a large multi-processor computer network. Initially developed for biothreat detection, we have expanded the database with all known NCBI microbial species. With a simple right click on an NGS data file, ZovaSeq automatically mines the gigabases of data in a logical, tiered approach and outputs reports containing successively increasing analysis resolution: identification of microbial species, relevant markers or SNPs, closest microbial strain as well as relevant plots and coverage tables. ZovaSeq identification can take place at several taxonomical levels so novel pathogenic species (e.g. Coronavirus SARS) can be identified. We are currently in collaboration with groups working with Cystic Fibrosis patients and hospital air monitoring. A workflow from sample to sequence using several novel technologies will be presented.