In the battle against the Covid-19 variants, the Institut Pasteur has acquired a new weapon, delivered from the Netherlands. This is a brand new sequencer capable of reading the genome of viruses. These machines cost between 200,000 and 300,000 euros. “This sequence will allow us to answer if we are dealing with an English, South African, Brazilian variant … It is also to go and look for what we do not know today, that is to say all new mutations or new combinations of mutations“, Explain Vincent Enouf, director of the mutualized microbiology platform.
The platform hopes to go from 800 to 1,500 sequencing per week. About a hundred samples arrive daily at the virus reference center. At least five days are necessary to obtain the result of the sequencing, which still needs to be analyzed and compared with the viruses already known.
When a variant is identified, another research unit at the Institut Pasteur will study it. To respond, the teams will, for example, take virus from a sample and lung cells, then make them multiply and put them in contact to see the action of the virus or variants.
The JT
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