This research develops a computational method for detecting hidden RNA viruses within existing RNA sequencing datasets. By identifying conserved viral protein signatures, the approach enables large-scale discovery of previously unknown viruses, improving understanding of viral diversity, disease mechanisms, and future opportunities for diagnostics, surveillance, and antiviral treatment development.

Mashpit is a portable genome-search tool that runs on a Raspberry Pi, enabling rapid, offline screening of Salmonella genomes. Using MinHash sketches, it scans hundreds of thousands of genomes in seconds, offering small or low-resource labs a fast, accessible way to identify related isolates before performing high-resolution follow-up analyses.