In a development that could hasten the ability of researchers it he field to analyze genomes—and in today’s world help provide valuable information about the spread of the pandemic—Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) recently unveiled an iPhone app that when paired with a handheld DNA sequencer provides a mobile genetics lab.

The iGenomics app was developed over the course of 8 years by Aspyn Palatnick working in the CSHL lab Adjunct Associate Professor Michael Schatz’s laboratory. Palatnick, now a software engineer with Facebook, began his work when he was 14 years old as an intern in the Schatz lab.

iGenomics runs entirely on an iOS device, reducing the need for laptops or other large computing equipment making it a valuable tool in the field. It was developed to complement the small, portable sequencing devices currently being manufactured by Oxford Nanopore. The new app should help make genome studies more portable, accessible, and affordable.

“As the sequencers continued to get smaller, there were no technologies available to let you study that DNA on a mobile device,” Shatz says. “Most of the studying of DNA: aligning, analyzing, is done on large server clusters or high-end laptops.”

According to Schatz, he recognized that scientists studying pandemics are deploying portable Nanopore devices to remote locations, but then needing to also bring in laptops and other computer servers to do the sequencing analysis. iGenomics can make the analyses of the genomes as portable as the sequencing devices themselves.

In a paper published in the journal Gigascience, Palatnick and Schatz report the iGenomics algorithm can quickly map DNA sequences of viral pathogens, such as a flu virus or Zika virus, and identify mutations important for diagnosis and treatment. They also provide an online tutorial for analyzing other viral genomes, such as from a SARS-CoV-2 patient.

Users of the app can AirDrop sequencing data to each other, enabling DNA analysis in the most remote locations and Schatz thinks the new device can help both health workers in the field and average people alike.

“Today, we all carry professional cameras in our pockets, so it’s not that hard to imagine in the next couple years, all of us carrying our own DNA sequencers on our smartphones,” Schatz concludes. “There’s just so many opportunities to do measurements of our environment and look for pathogens, maybe even do scans of yourself.”