All viruses on earth are genetically related

“To maximize the likelihood of detecting a new virus, he and his team had put onto the Virochip the oldest gene sequences of each known virus—those strings of genes that had been preserved even after the virus had evolved.”

If the unidentified virus is a new virus, why would it stick to anyplace on the Virochip?
People always asked this. All viruses on earth are genetically related, Joe explained, because they’d evolved from common ancestors. If a virus is new, and thus doesn’t match up perfectly with the DNA on the chip, the chip can still lead you to its family. Its grandparents or, at least, its distant cousins. The chip, in other words, could be used not just to diagnose an existing virus but to discover a new one, as it had with SARS. And its power to diagnose grew with the addition of new viruses to the chip.”

Excerpt From: Michael Lewis. “The Premonition: A Pandemic Story.”