a new method that uses this phage mixture to test blood samples for over 200 species and 1000 strains of virus at a time. The team speculates that their technique, named VirScan (VEERscan), could one day become a near-universal test for viral infections using just one drop of a patient’s blood, replacing one-off tests for specific types of virus. Very common infections, like rhinoviruses and herpesviruses, come up regularly in VirScan, while more exotic viruses are found rarely if at all. “Sure enough, for many common viral infections we’re detecting them at pretty high levels. And for some viruses like CMV [one of the herpesviruses], which is known to infect 50% of the population, that is in fact what we saw.” VirScan could be brought into a number of research areas where virome-wide sequencing, or targeted viral tests, have not given us the full picture. Wylie, for instance, is curious what antibodies would be found in a large study of children, a major focus of her own research on the virome. “You’re actually developing your immune repertoire at that time. It would be interesting to see that history of what children had been exposed to, and what might be missing from the common pathogens in a child… We have to realize we’re a bit changed after these exposures, and this is one method of looking broadly at that.” Kula hopes that VirScan can shine a light on mysterious diseases like chronic fatigue syndrome and Kawasaki disease. Some experts suspect these illnesses are caused or exacerbated by viruses, but those suspicions are hard to confirm when no one knows which virus to look for. With VirScan, this is no obstacle.

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