Supporting Global COVID-19 Sequencing Surveillance

A £30M investment in the United Kingdom to run a global surveillance programme of the new variants of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, announced recently by Dante Lab, started with a hardware and analytical capacity of 50,000 RNA samples per week.

As the SARS-CoV-2 virus mutates, few companies have the skills and expertise to offer both RT-PCR molecular diagnostics and full RNA sequencing. In 2020, Dante Labs successfully leveraged its Immensa™ Genome Platform to support COVID-19 testing at scale and towards end Jan 21 had analysed 2.5mllion COVID-19 RT-PCR tests and sequenced more than 30,000 whole genomes.

“The SARS-CoV-2 RNA may be simpler to analyse than the human genome. Yet both require massive investments in software and people,” says Dante Labs CEO Andrea Riposati, “Today the UK is the best country to invest in, a global leader in genomics and a beacon of hope for the future of humanity.”

Dante Labs built Immensa™ as a smart software platform that uses machine learning to advance the interpretation of the human genome with every analysis. The same approach proved successful in the fight against COVID-19 to provide more precise answers at scale.

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