On Nov. 12, 2024, researchers from the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) reported that their genomic test developed to rapidly detect almost any kind of pathogen – virus, bacteria, fungus or parasite – has proved successful after a decade of use.

Between 2016 and 2023, the UCSF team analyzed nearly 5,000 CSF samples with the test, 14.4% of which turned out to have an infection. In those samples, the test accurately identified the pathogen 86% of the time.

The test has the potential to vastly improve care for neurological infections that cause diseases like meningitis and encephalitis, as well as speed up the detection of new viral pandemic threats. It uses a powerful genomic sequencing technique, called metagenomic next-generation sequencing (mNGS). The paper was published in Nature Medicine.