33 SPECIAL SECTION: SMART HEALTH
Image created using MesoCraft 3D-modeling software (nanovis.kaust.edu.sa)
TRACKING COVID-19 VARIANTS Interactive platform produced by KAUST researchers helps track virus mutations and their spread MINISTRY OF HEALTH “I fully support using KAUST’s CovMT to monitor SARS-CoV2 mutations of concern at both the national and the international level, as part of a robust public health strategy going forward.” Abdullah M. Asiri, Deputy Minister of Health
Tracking how the SARS-CoV-2 virus mutates is a pressing concern for public health officials around the world. As of early May 2021 – nearly 14 months into the COVID-19 pandemic – more than 1.6 million unique virus isolates had been identified by scientists, and the list only continues to grow. Virologists have been working around the clock to sequence virus genomes as variants evolve and spread. This global effort has generated vast and daunting amounts of data that most researchers and public health officials do not have time to sift through. Making this data both accessible and easy to understand and visualize is therefore key to successfully navigating the pandemic, and can help public health officials and policymakers keep track of the most worrying mutations – especially those in the receptor binding domain of the spike protein that enables the virus to infiltrate human cells. Computational science can help, and a team led by KAUST Senior Computational Bioinformatician Dr. Intikhab Alam and his colleagues has developed COVID-19 Virus Mutation Tracker (CovMT), a free, interactive platform to show how the virus is changing and spreading over time. CovMT was developed out of an initiative launched by Distinguished Professor of Bioscience Takashi Gojobori, who is also the acting director of KAUST’s Computational Bioscience Research Center. Dr. Alam has been leading the development of the platform, which gathers daily data on newly sequenced genomes from GISAID, an initiative that collates genetic sequences and the related clinical and epidemiological data about the SARS-CoV-2 virus from various parts of the world. At present, the interactive platform has genome mutation data for more than 1.6 million virus isolates, which it organizes into groups of generic
