IDbyDNA, Inc. announced that its currently available Explify Respiratory test can detect 2019-nCoV in addition to over 900 other viral, bacterial, fungal and parasitic pathogens. Explify Respiratory is a validated Laboratory Developed Test (LDT) currently offered by IDbyDNA’s Salt Lake City lab for respiratory pathogens, including human coronaviruses.
Since the publication of the 2019-nCoV genome, IDbyDNA’s team has analyzed in-silico generated samples and computationally validated the capability to detect 2019-nCoV and differentiate it from other human coronaviruses. The company has been in contact and cooperating with public health agencies to ensure a coordinated response to suspected or confirmed 2019-nCoV infections. Any such will be reported immediately to public health authorities, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The CDC has recently released interim guidance for healthcare professionals on human infections with 2019-nCoV.
The Explify platform utilizes next-generation sequencing (NGS)-based metagenomics, which is more resilient to quickly evolving pathogens, such as many viruses, and ensures that the test can be quickly adapted to emerging pathogens. This is the second time in recent years that IDbyDNA was able to quickly address a critical gap in an emerging health threat via metagenomics. During the Zika virus epidemic in 2015-16, the company’s team worked with collaborators to identify the causal Zika viral strain of the first death in the U.S., as was published in the New England Journal of Medicine.
