Bact-Builder

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Invention Summary:

Mycobacterium tuberculosis infects a quarter of the world's population and was the second leading infectious disease killer after SARS-CoV-2 in 2020. The H37Rv strain of M. tuberculosis is widely used in laboratory experiments, but current genome assembly tools are unreliable and lack consistency.

Rutgers researchers have integrated an algorithm called Bact-Builder to address this gap. The novel pipeline uses consensus building to generate highly accurate gap-closed bacterial genomes from raw sequencing data. This novel pipeline has been tested to provide ~100% accuracy and reproducibility when sequencing three separate H37Rv cultures, as well as the ability of the assembly tool to reveal ~6.4 kb of new sequence that is absent from in the GenBank. .

Market Applications:

  • Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) detection
  • Phylogenetic studies
  • Construction of new reference sequences
  • Variant analysis
  • Meta-genomic and pan-genomic studies.

Advantages:

  • Generates highly accurate genomes using existing programs.
  • Open-source and easy to use via singularity containers.
  • Can assemble raw sequencing reads into a polished genome with 50x genome coverage.
  • Final genomes are gap-closed and highly reproducible.
  • Outputs can be used for various downstream applications such as new reference sequences, reference-based assembly, RNAseq, TnSeq, and meta-genomic and pan-genomic studies.

Intellectual Property & Development Status: Looking for research and business collaboration. For any business development and other collaborative partnerships contact:  marketingbd@research.rutgers.edu

Patent Information:
Licensing Manager:
Andrea Dick
Associate Director, Licensing
Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey
848-932-4018
aid8@research.rutgers.edu
Business Development:
Eusebio Pires
Senior Manager, Technology Marketing & Business Development
Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey
ep620@research.rutgers.edu
Keywords: