Phenotype-Based Threat Assessment

Abstract

Assessing the threat posed by bacterial samples is fundamentally important to safeguarding human health. Whole-genome sequence analysis of bacteria provides a route to achieving this goal. However, this approach is fundamentally constrained by the scope, the diversity, and our understanding of the bacterial genome sequences that are available for devising threat assessment schemes. For example, genome-based strategies offer limited utility for assessing the threat associated with pathogens that exploit novel virulence mechanisms or are recently emergent. To address these limitations, we developed PathEngine, a machine learning strategy that features the use of phenotypic hallmarks of pathogenesis to assess pathogenic threat. PathEngine successfully classified potential pathogenic threats with high accuracy and thereby establishes a phenotype-based, sequence-independent pipeline for threat assessment.

Document Details

Document Type
Pub Defense Publication
Publication Date
Apr 01, 2022
Source ID
10.1073/pnas.2112886119

Entities

People

  • Alexandria-jade Roberts
  • Alice R. Wattam
  • Allan Dickerman
  • Angelina Volkova
  • Arum Han
  • Clark Cucinell
  • Dongmei Zhang
  • Erin Van Schaik
  • Holly Paterson
  • James E Samuel
  • Jarred Kendziorski
  • Jason Maples
  • Jennifer Dootz
  • Jing Yang
  • Kasra Faghihi
  • Mark Weston
  • Mayukh Das
  • Mohammed Eslami
  • Osahon Obanor
  • Paul de Figueiredo
  • Qing-Ming Qin
  • Robbie K. Moore
  • Robert C. Alaniz
  • S. Coburn
  • Shaorong Chen
  • Stephanie Servetas
  • Yi-pei Chen

Organizations

  • National Institute of Standards and Technology
  • University of Virginia

Tags

Fields of Study

  • Biology

Readers

  • Molecular and genetic basis of cancer.
  • Strategic Security Studies
  • Systems Analysis and Design

Technology Areas

  • AI & ML
  • AI & ML - Neural Networks