Geneticists are creating a family tree for the coronavirus as it mutates
What’s happening: As a virus spreads, it mutates, developing random changes in single genetic letters in its genome. By tracking those changes, scientists can trace its evolution and learn which cases are most closely related and how the infection is hopping between countries. It’s like creating a family tree in nearly real time.
Real time analysis: The data is being tracked on a website called Nextstrain, an open-source effort to “harness the scientific and public health potential of pathogen genome data.” Because scientists are posting data so quickly, this is the first outbreak in which a germ’s evolution and spread have been tracked in so much detail, and almost in real time. The latest maps already show dozens of branching events.
Any examples?: One patient, a 61-year-old from São Paulo, had traveled in Italy’s northern Lombardy region that month, so Italy was likely where he acquired the infection. But the sequence of his virus suggested a more complex story, linking his illness back to a sick passenger from China and an outbreak in Germany.
Why it matters: The work of the genome sleuths is helping show where containment measures have failed. It also makes clear that countries have faced multiple introductions of the virus, not just one. Eventually, genetic data could pinpoint the original source of the outbreak. Read more.
—Antonio Regalado
