Libra: Comparative Metagenomics With MapReduce

Case ID:
UA18-111
Invention:

Libra is an algorithm for all-vs-all genome sequencing tool to identify problematic microbes. It handles large data sets with speed, accuracy and efficiency.

 

Background:

Most bioinformatics methods need a reference source of known genomes to ensure accurate measurements of depth and variance. Sequencing and comparing wholly unknown genomes with no reference (all-vs-all) can be unwieldy both in terms of computation and storage, making microbes in complicated samples hard to identify. Libra is constructed on a big data framework, which makes it tailored to scale up for large sequences and efficiently store them.

 

Applications:

  • All-vs-all sequencing, specifically microbe identification in complex and varied samples
  • Drug discovery, taxonomy and pathology
  • Genomic sequencing and information
  • Libra can be a catch all for accurate microbe identification for any purpose, as it does not use probability methods which need reference data

 

Advantages:

  • Does not use probability methods
  • Reference-free
  • Easy to use
  • A catch-all for accurate microbe identification for any purpose
  • Lower overhead costs
  • Useful for many purposes involving microbe analysis even outside of pathology and taxonomy
  • Easily scalable
Patent Information:
Contact For More Information:
Tod McCauley
Assistant Director of Licensing, CALS
The University of Arizona
520-621-9493
todm@tla.arizona.edu
Lead Inventor(s):
Bonnie Hurwitz
George Watts
Illyoung Choi
John Hartman
Keywords: