The story of Genome Detective
Genome Detective makes genomic intelligence easily accessible for professionals in clinical labs, research institutes, and public-health organizations, turning raw NGS data into actionable insights for rapid decision-making, backed by the highest standards of quality and security.
A future where affordable and standardized sequencing-based diagnostics with integrated genomic monitoring is the global standard of care for microbial infections, feeding into hospital hygiene and public health. We envision a world in which pathogen genomics drives faster, smarter responses to infectious disease threats, for individuals and society.
Background
Genome Detective’s history started from academic research in the early 2000s, with roots in HIV research and outbreak analysis. In 2015, the first NGS analysis tools were created, and Genome Detective was born as an untargeted analysis tool for viral species. The offering was continuously expanded, and by now Genome Detective has grown to a all-in-one bioinformatics suite for microbial labs, covering viruses, bacteria, fungi, parasites, for shotgun sequencing species detection, AMR analysis, targeted sequencing (16S/ITS/…), outbreak analysis, and much more.
Our milestones
2008
Emweb was founded, offering viral subtyping bioinformatics software. Emweb creates the molecular platform (MPF), which forms the backbone of Netherland’s health institute (RIVM) national and international surveillance networks for viral species and antimicrobial resistance
2015
Creation of Genome Detective
2018
Genome Detective is used as accredited lab-developed test in routine diagnostic flows of university hospitals
2019-2021
During the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, the CERI (Stellenbosch, South-Africa) and Genome Detective played a key role in the early discovery of the Beta and Omicron variants of concern
2020
New pipelines are added to Genome Detective to expand the analysis capabilities to bacteria, fungi and parasites
2021-2025
Participation in the Horizon 2020 project Virtigation leads to pipelines for rolling circle amplification and better support for plant viruses
2023
A novel approach to 16S long read sequence classification makes Genome Detective the analysis tool of choice for clinical labs
2025
The Anti Microbial Resistance marker module is publicly available
Metadata annotations and analysis modules are fully available to all
2026
The public release of the long read targeted metagenomic sequencing pipeline for the generalized ITS region