17 October 2018 - - US-based non-profit medical research organisation Chan Zuckerberg Biohub (Biohub) and the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative have launched the soft-launch of IDseq, an open source cloud-based analysis platform that has the potential to transform our ability to detect and respond to infectious disease outbreaks around the world, the group said.

Dr. Joseph DeRisi, co-president of the Biohub and professor of biochemistry and biophysics at UC San Francisco, made the announcement at the Gates Grand Challenges meeting in Berlin, Germany.

The tool, which began as a research project at Dr. DeRisi's UCSF lab, works by rapidly combing through terabytes of metagenomic data for pathogens in a given sample, be it bacteria, a virus, fungus, or even a parasite.

By identifying disease-causing pathogens, IDseq can then provide an actionable report of what is happening on the ground in labs and clinics anywhere in the world.

IDseq has already demonstrated its ability to detect disease in the field. In a recent pilot project, Dr. Senjuti Saha of the Child Health Research Foundation (Dhaka, Bangladesh) used IDseq to identify the presence of the mosquito-borne viral chikungunya disease in the spinal fluid of patients at the largest pediatric hospital in Bangladesh (Dhaka Shishu Hospital).

Based on this information, follow-up testing identified additional cases of neuroinvasive chikungunya from the same time period that were previously labeled "mystery cases."

To enable broader access to IDseq and valuable on-the-ground feedback, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation TODAY announced a new funding opportunity for global health workers via the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Grand Challenges Explorations Initiative.

Awardees will receive molecular biology and bioinformatics training from Dr. DeRisi and his infectious disease team at the Biohub, free access and compute on the IDseq platform supported by CZI, along with the necessary equipment and supplies immediately needed to begin work in their own countries. Results from these partnerships will provide valuable feedback to inform product development.

The ultimate goal is to make the tool openly available to global health workers everywhere.

While the IDseq service is still a rapidly evolving research project, the Biohub and CZI plan to make it available within the next year to partner organizations, and then more broadly afterward. The software itself is open-source and freely available.

The CZ Biohub is an independent non-profit medical research organisation collaborating with the University of California, Berkeley, Stanford University and the University of California, San Francisco. The organization's goal is to harness the power of science, technology and human capacity to cure, prevent or manage all disease during our children's lifetime.

The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, founded by Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan in December 2015, is a new kind of philanthropic organization that brings together world-class engineering, grant-making, impact investing, policy, and advocacy work.

Its initial areas of focus include supporting science through basic biomedical research and education through personalized learning. The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative are also exploring other issues tied to the promotion of equal opportunity including access to affordable housing and criminal justice reform.

In developing countries, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation focuses on improving people's health and giving them the chance to lift themselves out of hunger and extreme poverty.

In the United States, it seeks to ensure that all people, especially those with the fewest resources, have access to the opportunities they need to succeed in school and life. Based in Seattle, Washington, the foundation is led by CEO Sue Desmond-Hellmann and Co-chair William H. Gates Sr., under the direction of Bill and Melinda Gates and Warren Buffett.