ViruSurf : a research engine to study the genoma of Coronavirus

ViruSurf has been developed at the Politecnico di Milano from the resarch group directed by Stefano Ceri. It collects the data related to the sequencing of the Coronavirus (among other projects) to study it and anticipate its mutations. .

From the beginning of the pandemic, labs around the world collect and sequence the genetic material of the virus via the swabs of people affected by COVID-19. It is a huge amount of data which will be fundamental in knowing how the virus will behave in the future. To collect this data in a single database available to all, a research group, directed by Prof. Stefano Ceri developed ViruSurf, a research engine on a database of the Politecnico which contains up to today 200.516 sequences of SARS-CoV-2 (together with 33.256 sequences of other viral species such as SARS, MERS, Ebola and dengue). The web interface of ViruSurf is open access (you can findit at  this link) and you can compute many different research queries. Is also able to implement an algorithm to compute viral mutations, via cloud computing.

ViruSurf has been born within the project GeCo, financed by the European Research Council (read more about it in the MAP#5). Professor Ceri comments for Science Business: “We already had developed a research engine for datasets describing the human genoma, called GenoSurf; at the beginning of the pandemic there was not such a system for viral sequences. We interviewed around 20 virologists around the world to understand their needs. The system is now very easy to use: any researcher can connect and enter queries, to know when a mutation started and when it started to spread around the world.(source).

A paper on this project is available at Nucleic Acids Research.

Discover the project GeCo on the MAP #5

Credits header/home: https://www.centrofiera.it/2021/09/02/elettronica-informatica-high-tech-radio-e-vinile-al-via-la-fiera-dellelettronica/