Signature Science Membership on University of Texas’ DARPA B-SURE Program Team Announced
March 17, 2023 • An article posted to Homeland Preparedness News announced the University-led teams participating in the DARPA B-SURE Program. Signature Science is proud to join the University of Washington and the University of Wisconsin-Madison on The University of Texas team. The team is focused on program track 3: “Variable Radiation,” and will work to discover the effects of variable radiation on microbial molecule production. From the article: “The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) announced three university teams to participate in its Biomanufacturing: Survival, Utility and Reliability beyond Earth (B-SURE) program this week, setting each up to investigate … MORE
Award continues federally funded sexual assault kit backlog reduction effort AUSTIN, TEXAS – March 7, 2023 – Signature Science, LLC was awarded an 18-month, $1,108,934 contract from the Houston Forensic Science Center (HFSC) to perform forensic screening and DNA analysis of … MORE
Celebrating with SwRI – Annual Meeting Makes News
February 28, 2023 • Southwest Research Institute (SwRI), together with Advisory Trustees, Board of Directors and special guests, held its 75th Annual Meeting at SwRI’s headquarters in San Antonio. The Institute’s press release covering the event was picked up by … MORE
Abstract The COVID-19 pandemic forever underscored the need for biosurveillance platforms capable of rapid detection of previously unseen pathogens. Oxford Nanopore Technology (ONT) couples long-read sequencing with in-field capability, opening the door to real-time, in-field biosurveillance. Though a promising technology, streaming … MORE
In a paper published in Forensic Science International: Synergy, founders of the National Technology Validation and Implementation Collaborative (NTVIC) announced the group’s formation, in addition to the formation of its first Technology Validation Working Group, the Forensic Investigative Genetic Genealogy Technology Validation Group (FIGG-TVG). Signature Science’s Center for Advanced Genomics is proud to be a member of this group, “focused on the implementation of Forensic Investigative Genetic Genealogy (FIGG), Forensic Genetic Genealogy (FGG), and Investigative Genetic Genealogy (IGG) in public law enforcement agencies and forensic science laboratories.” The NTVIC mission: “The mission of the National Technology Validation and Implementation Collaborative (NTVIC) is … MORE
HORIZON Newsletter – January 2023
Join the CAG in celebrating with AAFS in Orlando (Feb 13-18)! Stop by our Booth 401 – our CAG stainless steel pint glass giveaway will help you raise a toast to 75 years of The American Academy of Forensic Sciences! Fear of … MORE
Abstract Forensic Genetic Genealogy (FGG) requires high-density single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) profiles to infer distant relationships. The ForenSeq Kintelligence kit is a recently developed method targeting 10,230 SNPs that were selected to be compatible with genetic genealogy databases, whereas avoiding medically … MORE
Analysis of Bronchoalveolar Lavage Fluid Metatranscriptomes Among Patients with COVID-19 Disease
Abstract To better understand the potential relationship between COVID-19 disease and hologenome microbial community dynamics and functional profiles, we conducted a multivariate taxonomic and functional microbiome comparison of publicly available human bronchoalveolar lavage fluid (BALF) metatranscriptome samples amongst COVID-19 (n = 32), community … MORE
k2v: A Containerized Workflow for Creating VCF Files from Kintelligence Targeted Sequencing Data
Abstract The ForenSeq Kintelligence kit developed by Verogen is a targeted Illumina sequencing assay that genotypes 10,230 single nucleotide polymorphisms designed for forensic genetic genealogy, forensic DNA phenotyping, and ancestry inference. We developed k2v, a containerized workflow for creating standard specification-compliant … MORE
Award continues CDC-funded development of standardized protocols for rapid, accurate detection of RNA viruses using the Oxford Nanopore MinION AUSTIN, TEXAS – Nov. 22, 2022– The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has selected Signature Science, LLC to validate an … MORE
Forecasting Influenza-Like Illness (ILI) during the COVID-19 Pandemic
Abstract Near-term probabilistic forecasts for infectious diseases such as COVID-19 and influenza play an important role in public health communication and policymaking. From 2013-2019, the FluSight challenge run by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention invited researchers to develop and … MORE