CSIRO Has Developed a New Tool That Could Outsmart New COVID-19 Variants

CSIRO Has Developed a New Tool That Could Outsmart New COVID-19 Variants

We’re in the thick of Aussie winter and with BA.4 and BA.5 sub-variants of Omicron on the rise, we’re facing the third wave of COVID and a return to the grim ol’ days of January. But there is a little bit of light. Researchers at CSIRO have developed a faster and more comprehensive tool to identify emerging and dangerous COVID-19 variants.

In an announcement made yesterday, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) said it has developed a new tool that acts as an early warning signal to identify dangerous COVID variants. It works by analysing the DNA of the whole variant, rather than the current method of monitoring changes to the spike protein.

According to CSIRO, there are more than 11 genes within the COVID-19 virus, and these interact with the human immune system in different ways. By looking beyond just the spike protein, researchers can better predict how a new variant might behave inside the human body. Up until now, the method of tracking new variants was to look for genetic changes in variants that are currently being monitored, such as Delta and Omicron.

It is hoped that the research could help inform an early warning system that can determine which variants will be the deadliest to humans.

“By harnessing the capability of a powerful machine learning tool we developed, called VariantSpark, we were able to analyse the genomes of 10,000 COVID-19 samples, which is the largest number of samples ever analysed in this way,” CSIRO scientist Dr Denis Bauer said.

“Our approach was able to identify variants that could be monitored a week before they were flagged by health organisations – and a week is a long time when you’re trying to outsmart a pandemic.”

VariantSpark, CSIRO said, gives hourly updates, providing the potential for information to be quickly shared with public health officials, and to allow hospitals to prepare for an increases in demand.

“VariantSpark analyses the entire genome of a virus and can account for small changes that on their own may not seem significant, but when combined with other small changes can influence the way the virus behaves,” Bauer added.

She said the power of data and technology is vital to preparing hospital systems for the ongoing impact of COVID.

It is hoped this new approach will eventually be used to develop vaccines to prevent future variants and pandemics. Bauer hopes the research can be applied to other viruses, saying it has the potential to become the international standard of disease surveillance.

CSIRO worked with medical market research firm RONIN, whose cloud-based system supported the analysis, and chip giant Intel on the study. You can read more about the research via Science Direct.


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