Catenaa, Thursday, October 23, 2025- Scientists at ETH Zurich have developed MetaGraph, a powerful search engine that allows researchers to scan vast public DNA and RNA databases in seconds, marking a major advance in genomic data analysis.
Dubbed a “Google for DNA,” the tool turns raw genetic sequences into a compressed, full-text index, enabling near-instant matching across global repositories like the U.S. Sequence Read Archive and Europe’s Nucleotide Archive, which together hold around 100 petabytes of data.
The innovation, detailed in Nature on October 8, allows full-text searches of DNA sequences instead of downloading massive datasets. ETH researchers say MetaGraph can locate genetic matches within seconds and at minimal cost—about $0.74 per megabase of data processed.
Lead researcher Professor Gunnar Rätsch said the system compresses data by a factor of 300 while preserving critical genetic information, a breakthrough that could accelerate research into antibiotic resistance, pathogen tracking, and viral evolution.
Unlike prior search tools, MetaGraph links raw data with metadata, maintaining accuracy while significantly reducing storage demands. The project, launched in 2020, currently indexes roughly half of global DNA datasets, with full coverage expected by year’s end.
Open-source and freely available, MetaGraph could soon attract interest from pharmaceutical firms and private users alike, potentially transforming biomedical discovery and personalized genomics.
