Covid-19: Abu Dhabi graduate helps develop tool to monitor coronavirus mutations

  • Date: 15-Sep-2020
  • Source: Khaleej Times
  • Sector:Education
  • Country:UAE
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Covid-19: Abu Dhabi graduate helps develop tool to monitor coronavirus mutations

A former resident of Abu Dhabi is part of an international research team that has developed a tool to keep track of the mutations of the Covid-19 virus.

Elston Neil D'Souza, the youngest member of the team led by University of Melbourne associate professor David Ascher, helped create the tool called Covid-3D, which harnesses genomic and protein information about the virus.

The changing structures of the virus make it challenging for experts to develop drugs and vaccines; so by monitoring these mutations, Covid-3D becomes an important instrument in the fight against the pandemic.

During the research, the D'Souza and his team analysed more than 120,000 samples of the novel coronavirus from infected patients globally.

"With the large amounts of data collected and