Early detection of animal diseases is essential for biosafety, and sustainable agriculture.
Viral pathogens are particularly challenging to detect because of their small, highly variable genomes and rapid evolution. Climate change and movement of people, animals and animal products further accelerate the naturally rapid spread of viruses, increasing the risk of outbreaks across regions and borders.
Next-generation sequencing (NGS) technologies have great potential for the rapid and reliable detection of pathogens in challenging, low-quality samples. This is particularly important as emerging viruses and strains threaten animal health, agriculture, and public health due to their zoonotic potential. In this project we aim to develop metagenomic methods for the Oxford Nanopore MinION NGS-platform to quickly detect a broad range of viral pathogens from complex and challenging samples.
