Healthcare workers and hospital staff are working to process patient tests to detect the virus causing the COVID-19 pandemic along with two biologists from the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) https://www.jhuapl.edu, a not-for-profit division of Johns Hopkins University.
Peter Thielen and Tom Mehoke, members of APL’s Research and Exploratory Development program, are waiting for patient tests to be developed as the tests will be an important key to learning more about the rapidly spreading virus.
With the U.S continuing to ramp up testing and mitigation capabilities, the ability to understand how outbreaks are linked gives public health departments another tool to do evaluations Mutations can explain how long the virus may have gone undetected and as a result, there are likely to be far more cases than have been diagnosed.
Scientists all over the world are sequencing the virus’ genome to gain the insight needed to trace the source of regional outbreaks. That’s type of insight can be referred to as developing a DNA fingerprint.
Software and molecular biology approaches developed in part at APL, are now enabling the use hand-held DNA sequencers to conduct immediate on-site sequencing of the SARS-CoV-2 genome which is the virus that causes COVID-19.
“This information enables us to track the evolution of the virus”, according to Peter Thielen, “It gives us a sense of where the new cases coming into Baltimore originated and gives us insight into how long transmission may have occurred undetected.”
The biologists need to be able to see how quickly the virus mutates. This will provide integral information in order to map the spread, and perhaps develop an effective vaccine. Influenza, for example, mutates constantly. That is why the vaccine is used against different strains of the flu each year.
Scientists operating remotely using hand-held sequencers and laptop computers are at the mercy of how long the tests take to return results. However Thielen and Mehoke, have just validated a new process that enables same day sequencing. The goal is to enable the hospital staff to have the results while already administering the diagnostic test.
Recently, Thielan and Mehoke held a workshop where they trained researchers to do on-site sequencing in their own laboratories. Participants came from the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, U.S Naval Research Laboratory, University of Maryland, Johns Hopkins Hospital, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Auburn University, University of California, Berkeley, and Kansas State University.