Nonprofit Viral Diagnostics Center Launched in the United States

An American university and a global health care company have partnered to launch a nonprofit viral diagnostics center to help identify unknown viruses from around the world.

Among the center's initial projects is genetic sequencing of strains of the influenza A(H1N1) virus that emerged during spring, 2009. The lab is collaborating with international scientists to compare strains found in patients in Mexico, the United States, and Canada, in an effort to identify how stable the virus is as it spreads. There is already concern that the virus, which shares a genetic fingerprint with other strains, could mutate to a more virulent and dangerous strain.

The University of California, San Francisco (UCSF; San Francisco, CA, USA) and its partner Abbott (Abbott Park, IL, USA) have launched the Viral Diagnostics and Discovery Center, (near the UCSF Mission Bay campus, CA, USA), which aims to expedite virus discovery in acute and chronic human illnesses, including outbreaks and rare and unusual diseases.

The center's technology is based on the ViroChip, a high-throughput screening technology that uses a DNA microarray to test viral samples. The ViroChip was developed by UCSF Professors Joe DeRisi, PhD, and Donald Ganem, MD, and was first used in the 2003 identification of the virus causing Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, or SARS.

"In the past two decades, many human diseases, including ulcers and cervical cancer, have been discovered to be caused by bacteria or viruses," said John Hackett, PhD, manager of Abbott's Virus Discovery Program, who led Abbott's efforts to create the new center. "This center could prove to be a powerful partnership for detecting more infectious agents, leading to the development of new diagnostics and therapeutics.

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Viral Diagnostics and Discovery Center