Paragon Genomics and Sophia Genetics COVID-19 Webinar On-demand Video

On-Demand Webinar: Turn your sequencing lab into a COVID-19 research and surveillance powerhouse

Duration: 1 hour

Summary: 

Real Time RT-PCR and antibody-based methods are currently the main tools used for detecting infectious agents including the novel SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus. However, these methods focus on limited regions and suffer from low-sensitivity issues, leading to significant levels of false negative results. Furthermore, these tests can only provide positive or negative diagnosis, decreasing the value of such assays to infectious disease researchers. As COVID-19 spreads internationally and additional complications in diagnostics and patient care arise, a more sensitive and informative method will be necessary to answer more complex questions that a purely positive/negative result cannot.

In this webinar, Paragon Genomics’ and SOPHiA Genetics’ experts detail their partnership and products offered to address the COVID-19 pandemic. Paragon’s CleanPlex® SARS-CoV-2 Research and Surveillance Panel was expertly designed using a proprietary design pipeline to cover the entire viral genome. The panel, comprised of 343 pairs of highly specific primers divided into two pools, delivers effective coverage of the whole viral genome, even when processing low viral copy number samples. The assay produces clean characteristic target peaks of defined size, allowing for direct visualization of positive samples by electrophoresis and follow-up confirmation via Next Generation Sequencing. Furthermore, SOPHiA’s PEPPER^TM technology allows for gene-level annotation, strain assignment and assessment, as well as variant flagging. Combining Paragon’s powerful sequencing platform and SOPHiA’s expert bioinformatics solutions bring a complete COVID-19 sequencing and data analysis package closer to researchers and scientists around the world.