Detecting DNA of novel fungal pathogens using ResNets and a curated fungi-hosts data collection

Jakub M. Bartoszewicz, Ferdous Nasri, Melania Nowicka, Bernhard Y. Renard

Abstract: Emerging pathogens are a growing threat, but large data collections and approaches for predicting the risk associated with novel agents are limited to bacteria and viruses. Pathogenic fungi, which also pose a constant threat to public health, remain understudied. Relevant data remain comparatively scarce and scattered among many different sources, hindering the development of sequencing-based detection workflows for novel fungal pathogens. No prediction method working for agents across all three groups is available, even though the cause of an infection is often difficult to identify from symptoms alone.