ViQi, Inc. awarded NSF Phase II grant
Machine learning for Rapid Automated Viral Infectivity Assays
After successfully proving that AI can work on Plaque Assays as part of the initial special Covid-19 grant, phase I. ViQi now received the Phase II grant for 1 million dollars.
Development of viral vaccines and antiviral drugs requires viral infectivity assays, however, the incubation periods of plaque and TCID50 assays can be as long as 14 days, and the alternatives like focus forming assay (FFA) require antibodies and extensive sample preparation or developing GFP-labeled viruses which is not always possible or desirable. This automated viral infectivity assay is based on brightfield microscopy, not requiring any stains or labels. A one time calibration of the machine learning model on a specific combination of virus, cell line, and imager is required to detect phenotypic changes associated with early stages of active virus infection in cells before being humanly visible. Detection can be done within hours (same-day) for fast-acting viruses or in as long as two days for viruses that take up to two weeks to develop infections detectable by conventional means. Not only will this assay significantly reduce the turn-around time and processing steps required, it can also be completely automated with conventional equipment used for high-content screening.
“We were extremely excited, along with our collaborators, that for each virus we have tried so far, we have been able to train and accurately quantify viral infectivity using this assay. Eight virus types tested include DNA, RNA, enveloped, and non-enveloped viruses, as well as viruses that do not reliably result in detectable cytopathic effects, such as HIV and Adenovirus. This new 1 million dollar grant will allow us to further optimize our cloud based solution and make it available to any lab working on applications such as vaccines, antivirals, viral clearance testing, viral gene therapy, oncolytic therapies, and potentially even diagnostics.” commented Dr. Ilya Goldberg, ViQi’s Chief Science Officer.
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