On Friday, January 31, 2020, Arbor Biosciences received a request from a researcher who needed help reconstructing the full viral genome of the novel coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2. She and her team study viral genomes in a variety of animal and human host species, and they were eager to study the evolution and genetic traits of the newly circulating coronavirus. “This group had used our myBaits custom kits successfully for previous research projects on different viruses and were interested in applying the same approach to their urgent COVID-19 research needs,” Alison Devault, PhD, Director of Genomics at Arbor Biosciences, explained via email.
Arbor Biosciences responded by accessing the full and partial SARS-CoV-2 genomic sequences that were publicly available in the NCBI GenBank database. Next, they used their in-house algorithms to design a curated set of hybridization capture probe sequences to detect and retrieve full viral genomes from any sample. They rapidly synthesized ...
