Virus Identification Cloud (VIC) for SARS-CoV-2: Jointly Launched by HUAWEI CLOUD, Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences, and Institut Pasteur of Shanghai
Feb 26, 2020
On February 10th, Virus Identification Cloud (VIC) was officially launched on HUAWEI CLOUD. VIC is a cloud platform for automatic virus genome identification supported by cloud computing technologies jointly developed by the Shanghai Institute of Biological Sciences and the Institut Pasteur of Shanghai of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS).
The platform uses the original RNA-seq data of human body samples as control groups to realize functions such as automatic quality control, gene splicing, and genome composition analysis for viruses. It can quickly detect and recognize virus forms, including the SARS-CoV-2, and analyze the relevant content online.
Genome sequencing is one of the methods for diagnosis of suspected cases of COVID-19. When the National Health Commission of China examined diagnosis and treatment methods for COVID-19, it determined that pathogenic testing methods are required, because diagnoses using only clinical manifestations and chest imaging are unreliable. Based on genome analysis, the platform can accurately identify genetic characteristics of the virus and monitor trends in its variation. It plays an irreplaceable role in epidemic prevention and control, disease diagnosis and treatment, drug screening, vaccine design, and drug development. It will also support the study of virus causes, mutation and evolution, pathogenic mechanisms and so on.
VIC implements convenient automatic services, including genome sequencing, splicing, and identification, greatly simplifying the operation process. Once the original case data from hospitals is uploaded to the VIC platform, the platform immediately begins genetic analysis. Doctors in hospitals can obtain the full genome analysis results shortly after the analysis. VIC is supported by the powerful computing capability of HUAWEI CLOUD GeneContainer Service, which provides the platform with high-throughput and multi-sample parallel cloud analysis capabilities. Not only can VIC accomplish comprehensive analysis of viruses infecting the respiratory tract and study pathogenic factors, but it can also assist with clinical diagnosis and provide possible treatment measures. In addition, the results can monitor virus mutation trends in order to take countermeasures in advance.
VIC was designed using the big data platform of the Pasteur Institut of Shanghai under CAS. It is developed, operated, and maintained by the Biomedical Big Data Center of the Shanghai Institute of Nutrition and Health. HUAWEI CLOUD Gene Container provides cloud service technical support. VIC serves only as a computing platform. All data rights belong to the data provider. The platform will not publish any scientific research papers using user data. At present, the Shanghai Public Health Clinical Center, Ruijin Hospital of Shanghai Jiaotong University School of Medicine, and Guangzhou Institutes of Biomedicine and Health under CAS are the first users of the platform. The original genome sequencing data analysis of the samples of COVID-19 patients has been completed on VIC.
