Article · Wikipedia archive · Last revised Jun 15, 2026

Nextstrain

Nextstrain is a collaboration between researchers in Seattle, United States and Basel, Switzerland which provides a collection of open-source tools for visualising the genetics behind the spread of viral outbreaks.

Last revised
Jun 15, 2026
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≈ 3 min
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Wikipedia ↗
Nextstrain
Formation2015 (2015)
Locations
Fields
Key people
Awards
Websitehttps://nextstrain.org

Nextstrain is a collaboration between researchers in Seattle, United States1 and Basel, Switzerland2 which provides a collection of open-source tools for visualising the genetics behind the spread of viral outbreaks.3

Its aim is to support public health measures and surveillance by facilitating understanding of the spread and evolution of pathogens. The Nextstrain platform was begun in 2015.2 Code developed by Nextstrain is made publicly available, via, for example GitHub.com and its data is available and viewable in accessible form via the pages at the website.4

Applications

According to their website, the Nextstrain team maintains an up-to-date genomic analysis of the following pathogens:5

The above list is based on the "featured analyses" list on the main page. A complete list of analyses maintained by the Nextstrain team can be found in "core pathogens". Additional analyses can be found in the "groups" and "community" links.

COVID-19 pandemic

Nextstrain and its results were widely quoted during the COVID-19 pandemic.6789

Awards

In March 2017, Nextstrain won the inaugural Open Science Prize, an initiative of the National Institutes of Health, in collaboration with the Wellcome Trust and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI).10

In May 2020, Nextstrain and Trevor Bedford (associate professor, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center)11 received a Webby Special Achievement Award for the web tool.12

See also

See also

References

References

  1. Richards, Sarah Elizabeth (26 March 2020). "How coronavirus mutations can track its spread—and disprove conspiracies". www.nationalgeographic.com. Archived from the original on 24 December 2020. Retrieved 25 December 2020.
  2. "Spread of a novel SARS-CoV-2 variant across Europe in summer 2020". www.unibas.ch. 29 October 2020. Archived from the original on 16 December 2020. Retrieved 25 December 2020.
  3. Reza, Nosheen (6 April 2020). "nextstrain RNA, DNA, and COVID-19]". earlycareervoice.professional.heart.org. Archived from the original on 25 January 2021. Retrieved 25 December 2020.
  4. Hadfield, James; Megill, Colin; Bell, Sidney; Huddleston, John; Potter, Barney; Callender, Charlton; et al. (22 May 2018). Kelso, Janet (ed.). "Nextstrain: real-time tracking of pathogen evolution". Bioinformatics. 34 (23): 4121–4123. doi:10.1093/bioinformatics/bty407. ISSN 1367-4803. PMC 6247931. PMID 29790939.
  5. "Nextstrain Real-time tracking of pathogen evolution Section 'Explore pathogens". nextstrain.org. Archived from the original on 26 December 2020. Retrieved 26 December 2020.
  6. Drake, John (19 December 2020). "The Science Behind London's Christmas Coronavirus Lockdown". www.forbes.com. Archived from the original on 22 December 2020. Retrieved 25 December 2020.
  7. Hodcroft EB, Zuber M, Nadeau S, Vaughan TG, Crawford KH, Althaus CL, Reichmuth ML, Bowen JE, Walls AC, Corti D, Bloom JD, Veesler D, Mateo D, Hernando A, Comas I, González-Candelas F (July 2021). "Spread of a SARS-CoV-2 variant through Europe in the summer of 2020". Nature. 595 (7869): 707–712. doi:10.1038/s41586-021-03677-y. hdl:10612/22151. PMID 34098568.
  8. "Swiss National COVID-19 Science Task Force". sciencetaskforce.ch. Retrieved 21 December 2021.
  9. "Nextstrain, Sequencing & the SARS-CoV-2 Pandemic" (PDF). www.medartbasel.ch. 2020. Retrieved 21 December 2021.
  10. "Online Virus Tracking Tool Nextstrain Wins Inaugural Open Science Prize | National Institute of General Medical Sciences". nigms.nih.gov. Retrieved 19 December 2025.
  11. "40 Under 40 Healthcare". fortune.com. Archived from the original on 20 October 2020. Retrieved 29 December 2020.
  12. "Webby Special Achievement". winners.webbyawards.com. Archived from the original on 10 October 2021. Retrieved 29 December 2020.
External links