AUSTIN, TEXAS — August 27, 2024 — In the wake of the global SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, public health officials have made it a priority to seek solutions to prevent future outbreaks. Current DNA and RNA sequencing capabilities, which focus on positively identifying the presence or absence of known threats, can often leave these agencies charged with combatting their outbreak playing catch-up when dealing with a novel pathogen.
To overcome this challenge, the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), part of the Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, has leveraged its Division of Research, Innovation, and Ventures (DRIVe) program to identify and fund the development of metagenomic next generation sequencing (NGS) technologies capable of performing agnostic diagnostics –– the identification of any viral pathogen in a given sample – in clinical laboratories and point-of-care settings. BARDA has awarded Signature Science an approximately $665,000, 13-month contract to develop and demonstrate a prototype platform using SEQ-OUTTM, SigSci’s manually operated unbiased (agnostic) metagenomic detection workflow and sample preparation platform for the rapid, simultaneous detection of DNA and RNA viruses.
Development of SEQ-OUTTM began in 2023 with internal investment. The workflow enables sample-to-sequencer preparation in less than three hours, dramatically reducing the time required to prepare samples for metagenomic analysis. With funding from BARDA, SEQ-OUT TM aims to fully automate the nucleic acid extraction, sample preparation, and sequencing library preparation processes.
“Agnostic diagnostics are the next frontier in public health and health security,” said Signature Science’s Principal Investigator Dr. Curt Hewitt. “The ability to screen a clinical sample and detect any viral signature, whether the virus is known or novel, has the potential to change the way the United States healthcare system operates and prevent future pandemic events. We are grateful for BARDA’s investment in this space.”
Work under the contract will be performed at Signature Science’s headquarters in Austin, Texas.
About Signature Science, LLC:
A subsidiary of the Southwest Research Institute, Signature Science, LLC is a scientific and technical consulting firm providing multi-disciplinary applied research, technology design and development, and scientific, technical, and operational services to government and industry.
This project has been supported in whole or in part with federal funds from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS); Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response (ASPR); Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), under contract 75A50124C00022.