Philippine Genome Center ready to help in detecting nCoV in PHL

The Philippine Genome Center (PGC) said that they were ready to assist the Department of Health (DOH) and Research Institute for Tropical Medicine (RITM) in detecting novel coronavirus cases (nCOV) in the country.

In a news item posted on the PGC website, the center said that they would use whole genome sequencing and "Next Generation DNA/RNA Sequencing" (NGS) equipment in verifying the presence of nCOV in samples from patients.

Whole-genome sequencing aims to discover the order of nucleotides or bases in a genome- the collection of DNA in a person- and it can determine variations as well.

"The method for whole-genome sequencing using NGS does not use primers and can be used to identify unknown organisms in a sample mixture by using bioinformatics or computational tools," said the PGC in a statement.

The PGC added that they could sequence positive nCOV-positive results from RT-PCR kits.

On its website, the PGC said that they had the capacity and expertise to work with government agencies during outbreaks.

"Sequencing tissues, RNA, whole genomes of organisms, including viruses, is among the services we provide; and our laboratory is ready to support efforts to address issues on a national scale such as 2019-nCoV," said Dr. Benedict Maralit, the head of the DNA Sequencing Core Facility of the PGC. — Angelica Y. Yang/DVM, GMA News