All News

Photo of SwRI front gate. Medallion with number 75 and "1947 - 2022. Southwest Research Institute." Text reads "Signature Science proud to Participate in SwRI Anniversary."

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 businesswire.com. Among the festivities and presentations detailed, the release mentions the... MORE
Transparent image of lungs in a human chest with virus cells.

fiphde: Open Source Flu Forecasting Software

fiphde was originally created to operationally forecast influenza hospitalizations during the 2021-22 and 2022-23 seasons of the FluSight challenge. The package includes functions for data retrieval, modeling, near-term forecasting, and forecast summarization. Functionality from fiphde has been implemented for other infectious disease forecasting, including the 2022-23 DoD COVID-like illness forecasting... MORE
Hand holding MinION device. SeqScreen NANO logo. Text reads "Preprint available in bioRXiv"

SeqScreen-Nano: a computational platform for rapid, in-field characterization of previously unseen pathogens: Preprint Available

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 assignment of accurate functional and taxonomic labels with nanopore... MORE
Multicolored DNA output forms face

Founders Announce Establishment of the National Technology Validation and Implementation Collaborative (NTVIC) and Forensic Investigative...

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... MORE
Thumbnail for Horizon newsletter - January 2023

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 Missing Out? Arrange a meetup before you go. We face... MORE
Stylized DNA helix in front of GATCs with checkmark. Text reads "Internal Validation of Enhanced Laboratory Methods for ForenSeq® Kintelligence Kit"

Published in “Forensic Genomics”: Internal Validation of the ForenSeq® Kintelligence Kit for Application to Forensic...

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 relevant SNPs. The targeted polymerase chain reaction method is... MORE
Bronchial pathways and covid molecule illustration with a lightning bolt dividing the two lungs.

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 acquired pneumonia (CAP) (n = 25), and uninfected samples (n = 29). We... MORE