Solu: a cloud platform for real-time genomic pathogen surveillance.

Area of Science:

• Genomic surveillance
• Bioinformatics
• Public health

Background:

• Genomic surveillance is crucial for tracking outbreaks and healthcare-associated pathogens.
• Current bioinformatics pipelines face infrastructure, expertise, and security challenges for continuous surveillance.
• Existing systems often lack integration capabilities for new data and do not meet healthcare privacy standards.

Purpose of the Study:

• To present Solu, a cloud-based platform for integrated genomic surveillance.
• To provide a real-time, privacy-focused system for pathogen tracking.
• To address limitations of existing bioinformatics pipelines for continuous surveillance.

Main Methods:

• Development of a cloud-based platform integrating genomic data.
• Implementation of real-time data analysis for surveillance.
• Focus on privacy-preserving features for healthcare applications.

Main Results:

• Solu demonstrates comparable accuracy to established pipelines for taxonomy, antimicrobial resistance (AMR) genes, and phylogenetics.
• The platform successfully identified previously undetected AMR genes.
• The findings validate Solu's efficacy as a surveillance tool.

Conclusions:

• Solu offers a reliable, user-friendly, and privacy-focused solution for genomic surveillance.
• The platform bridges the gap between research and practical healthcare applications.
• Solu is available for free academic use.