Sequencing Techniques and Genomics Technologies to Help with Diagnostics and Virus Characterization – Focus on COVID 19

Dear colleagues, 

The COVID-19 pandemic has affected global health and the global economy at an unprecedented scale. This event has necessitated that we implement strong measures for the early detection of and rapid response to infectious diseases and potential pandemics in the immediate future.

This Issue will focus on technologies that have been developed for the detection and diagnosis of infectious diseases and viral agents. In particular, it will focus on the diagnosis and characterization of SARS-CoV-2 using different genomics and sequencing technologies.

Several groups, both academic and commercial, from across the world, have done groundbreaking research in regard to developing rapid, point-of-care diagnostic tests for SARS-CoV-2. Additionally, there is substantial work on tracking the genomic epidemiology of the virus using state-of-the-art sequencing platforms. There is also an ongoing focus on patient and population stratification studies as well as the search of patient SNPs associated to susceptibility.

As an update from 2021, we will also consider studies on host interactions, such as the genomic and transcriptomic aspects of vaccination and immunity. 

We invite the research community from both academia and industry to submit their work on SARS-CoV-2 for this Issue. Even though the focus of the Issue is on COVID-19, we encourage colleagues to submit their work on relevant infectious diseases and genomics technologies. Per se all publications will remain open access during and after the pandemic.

These research findings will reveal further insights into the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak and its effects. This Issue will help define the actions and guidelines for surveillance, containment, and mitigation, for future events of such magnitude.

Dr. Miten Jain
Dr. Hugh E. Olsen
Prof. Ana Conesa
Dr. Adam Ameur
Guest Editors

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