Metagenomics to Help Develop Targeted Respiratory Pathogen Panel for Identifying SARS-CoV-2 and 250 Other Pathogens

Metagenomics analysis is transforming highly sophisticated research-only laboratory tools into practical diagnostics tools for routine hospital use, such as allowing physicians to determine whether a patient has COVID-19 and use the same test to confirm whether that patient has other respiratory pathogens exacerbating the illness.

A report by BioSpace focuses on IDbyDNA Laboratories’ (Salt Lake City, UT, USA) Explify platform for metagenomics analysis. Metagenomics can run through the entire genomic sequence of more than 50,000 species of organisms present in a patient sample and compare millions of sequences from a patient with millions of reference sequences. A diagnostic profile of possibly causative pathogens in a given sample helps physicians to determine whether there is a genetic basis for the phenotype. Being technically challenging, metagenomics analysis was usually performed by only the most sophisticated labs, such as those at the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC), and was used to analyze unexplained disease outbreaks rather than routine diagnostics. However, IDbyDNA’s Explify platform has simplified the process.


IDbyDNA aims to democratize metagenomics testing, bringing it to as many labs and as many patients as possible. The company is now developing a targeted respiratory pathogen panel to identify the presence of the SARS-CoV-2 virus and approximately 250 additional pathogens that can be tested in parallel, according to BioSpace. The focused pathogen panels being developed by IDbyDNA will bring a practical, cost-effective element to metagenomics that so far has been lacking, with the benefits extending beyond just diagnosis.

The ability to detect 50,000 organisms, including 6,000 known pathogen, based on the entire genome. “…helps you identify transmission throughout the community and to characterize the virus, determining, for instance, whether it is evolving, becoming more pathogenic, or becoming resistant to treatment,” Robert Schlaberg, MD, PhD, MPH - IDbyDNA co-founder and CMO, told BioSpace. “Existing diagnostic tests, like PRC, look for a single short piece of the genome – often shorter than 100 nucleotides – of a particular pathogen, such as the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Then you infer whether this is the virus.”

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