According to a press release issued today by the National Institutes of Health, researchers from the National Library of Medicine have identified key genomic features of SARS-CoV-2 that distinguish it from other members of the coronavirus family. The NIH says the research could be a crucial step in helping scientists develop approaches to predict, by genome analysis alone, the severity of future coronavirus disease outbreaks and detect animal coronaviruses that have the potential to infect humans. 

The findings were published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 

Here’s a link to the NIH press release containing additional information.