Hyderabad: The Washington University will participate in a genetic study of sequencing DNA of young people to unravel the mystery behind developing severe COVID-19 symptoms with no underlying medical conditions.
The McDonnell Genome Institute at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and more than 30 other genome sequencing hubs from all over the world will search for genetic defects that will put certain individuals at high risk of becoming severely ill from the coronavirus.
The international project COVID Human Genetic Effort is co-led by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and Rockefeller University.
“The first focus of our study will be patients with severe responses to SARS-CoV-2 infection — severe enough to require intensive care — who appear otherwise healthy and are younger than 50,” said Rheumatologist Megan A. Cooper.
Rheumatologist Copper is an associate professor of paediatrics, who is leading the research at Washington University and is also looking after the clinical immunology program and the Jeffrey Modell Diagnostic and Research Center for Primary Immunodeficiencies at St. Louis Children’s Hospital.
The researchers also plan to study people who never got infected with the new coronavirus despite repeated exposures.
“We sometimes see stories about, say, a marathon runner or a generally fit, healthy person who nevertheless got very sick from this virus, or the few healthy children who are getting very sick with COVID-19. These are the kinds of patients we’re interested in for this study. A small proportion of hospitalized patients will fit this category, likely less than 10%,” said Cooper.
Rheumatologist Copper said, “We can foresee a future ability to do a genetic sequencing test for individual patients hospitalized with SARS-CoV-2 and get an idea of whether they are likely to need more intensive care. In the meantime, we will be able to learn a great deal about how the immune system responds to this virus and what it needs to be able to respond effectively and in an appropriate manner.”
The genes of the patient reveal the important immune pathways that the body needs to fight the deadly virus.
The knowledge gained from this project can help researchers to identify therapies which can help other patients who don’t have a genetic susceptibility to the virus but perhaps have high-risk conditions.
“We’re seeing severe COVID-19 complications play out across the world right now. It is going to take a global effort to investigate the genetic factors and the immune system factors that really control this infection,” Copper further added.
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