Genetic Monitoring of Viruses and Bacteria Vital for Preventing Health Catastrophes, Study Suggests
The World Health Organization announced a US$4 million funding fund for initiatives by the International Pathogen Surveillance Network (IPSN), which seeks to sequence the genes of viruses and bacteria that can cause infections in human beings. humans. According to the announcement, the funds will be directed mainly to organizations in underdeveloped countries, so that they can also closely monitor possible threats to public health. Ester Sabino, an immunologist and professor at the USP Faculty of Medicine, explains how it is done and the importance of monitoring pathogens.
She says that, by sequencing the genetic code of these possibly infectious agents, we can obtain very useful information for preventing health catastrophes, such as the Covid-19 pandemic. “Sequencing is important, because it provides some more data about the agents: what the lineage is, if there are important variations that are causing this agent to acquire new capabilities and also to know if the regions in which the vaccine should be changed are changing. produce antibodies.”
The professor explains that, in the case of bacteria, genetic monitoring is especially important. Superbugs resistant to common antibiotics are emerging more and more frequently and it is important to know whether current medications are still able to eliminate these microbes.
Information Network
Just monitoring pathogens is not enough, says Ester Sabino. The information obtained must be shared with the rest of the scientific community. “Sequencing just for the sake of sequencing is no use, it has to be inserted into a process. An information system is needed that indicates if something is changing, how these samples can go to laboratories when something changes, sample capture and the best cases for sequencing,” she explains. “Sequencing itself is still too expensive to be used on a large scale, so we need to develop cheaper tools in the laboratory”, adds the professor.
Ester became famous in 2020 for leading the team that sequenced the genes of SARS-CoV-2 and says that, to enumerate the genetic code of the pathogens, several molecular biology techniques are used. The first challenge is collecting the sample (the coronavirus was extracted from the patient’s nasopharynx, with that long cotton swab). Then, molecular biology techniques are used. “When you receive the material, it comes with proteins and a bunch of other substances, you need to extract the DNA or RNA. Then, it is necessary to increase this viral DNA, because the virus’s DNA is tiny, much smaller than human DNA. For this, the PCR technique is used”, explains the specialist.
When the amount of DNA is greater, it is possible to place it in a sequencing machine, which will use a reagent or pass the bases through a nanopore to transform biological information into digital data.
Harsh lessons from the pandemic
Ester Sabino understands that the covid-19 pandemic showed the world the importance of international collaboration and funding programs for the genetic monitoring of microbes. “ There is no point in wanting very poor countries to be able to develop these technologies alone, which are so expensive and will end up taking resources away from other needs. It is necessary to have security not only for rich countries, but for poor countries too, as they are the ones who suffer most during an epidemic”, she argues.
It is also necessary to have very well-defined international cooperation standards and procedures to follow in a health emergency, to avoid disasters such as the 2020 pandemic. The teacher makes a comparison with fire prevention and fighting standards: “When a fire happens, the We don’t think about what to do. We know about the emergency exits, we systematically train how to leave the building and we have fire brigades. It is necessary to think about combating epidemics in the same way”, concludes Ester Sabino.