27 January 2021 - - US-based Swift Biosciences has released a targeted gene panel that covers 100% of the SARS-CoV-2 S gene, even with limited viral titers, the company said.

The Swift Normalase Amplicon SARS-CoV-2 S Gene Panel eliminates the need to perform qPCR for library normalization.

A pioneer in the development of DNA and RNA library preparation kits for Next-Generation Sequencing systems, Swift Biosciences developed the targeted gene panel to accelerate research into variants in the gene which encodes for the S protein.

Emerging strains, identified by NGS, that contain variants in the S gene present a particularly acute need for investigation as changes in this gene can directly affect how easily new strains transmit from person-to-person.

With greater than 25 m cases of COVID to date, the United States is ramping up NGS surveillance efforts to identify potential hot spots fueled by emerging strains of SARS-CoV-2.

Sequencing the SARS Co-V-2 S gene or the entire viral genome will assist researchers in rapid development of therapeutic targets and vaccine creation.

This will also guide decision making for mitigation strategies. 

Register Here for the webinar on February 11, 2021, in which data from the University of Washington is presented to show the power of Swift Biosciences technologies to advance surveillance programs.

The SNAP panel is the latest in Swift's SARS CoV-2 research toolkit to study emerging strains of SARS-CoV-2.

Other tools available include a targeted panel that covers the entire SARS-CoV-2 virus (SNAP SARS-CoV-2), a targeted panel for study of the ACE2 receptor (ACE2 SNAP), and a collaboration with Arbor Biosciences for hybridization-capture of the SARS-CoV-2 virus from RNA libraries.

Swift Biosciences also supports COVID testing with the qSanger COVID-19 test kit which received an Emergency Use Authorization in 2020.

The qSanger COVID-19 diagnostic test kit enables facilities to scale up to 3,000 tests per Sanger instrument per day without the need to batch samples or perform RNA extraction.

Swift was named to the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's new SARS-CoV-2 Sequencing for Public Health Emergency Response, Epidemiology and Surveillance (SPHERES) national genomics consortium, which aims to coordinate SARS-CoV-2 sequencing across the nation.

Swift Biosciences develops and commercializes NGS Library Preparation Kits to advance research into improvements in the health of individuals and their communities worldwide, specifically in the fight against cancer and management of inherited diseases.

Its research use only tools are used in areas such as agrigenomics, infectious disease research, metagenomics, and the pharmaceutical industry.