A team of UK researchers is comparing the genomes of 8,000 people who had mild or no COVID-19 symptoms against those of severely ill patients to find out why some people dodge severe disease. The problem is a central puzzle of the pandemic: age, ethnicity, and underlying health conditions explain some of the risk, but not all. Young, fit people sometimes end up in intensive care while seemingly vulnerable people have only mild illness. The answer may lie in how a person’s genome—the body’s instruction manual—interacts with environmental factors to amplify or dampen the immune response to the virus. This project brings together three major UK programmes: GenOMICC (which studies severely ill patients in intensive care), Genomics England (which sequences genomes for the NHS), and the REACT programme (which tracks community transmission). By combining their data, the team will use a multi-omics approach—looking not just at the genome itself but at how its instructions are interpreted at multiple biological levels. If successful, this work could identify biological pathways that protect against severe COVID-19, enabling better prediction of who is most at risk and pointing toward new treatments or preventive strategies.
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We know that some people are more at risk from COVID-19 than others, for instance if they are older, from a minority ethnic group or have other health conditions. But one of the biggest COVID-19 puzzles is why some people who are younger or previously fit develop very severe symptoms whilst people like them who are seemingly much more at risk, only get mild illness. One of the answers may lie in the genome, the body's instruction manual, and how it interacts with the environment. These interactions may protect or amplify the response to infection with the virus that causes COVID-19. This project brings together a leading international team of researchers with the expertise across different disciplines essential to be able to understand how the virus interacts with the body and to identify new treatment opportunities. It includes the research group which is responsible for patients that have been severely affected by COVID-19 and admitted to intensive care (GenOMICC) and the organisation that sequences and interprets genomes for the NHS (Genomics England) with the REal-time Assessment of Community Transmission (REACT) programme that is responsible for understanding how the virus spreads in the community. GenOMICC and Genomics England are already comparing the genomes and health data from two groups of people who tested positive for COVID-19; people recruited through hospitals who had severe COVID-19 against people who tested positive for COVID-19 but who either had no, or only mild, symptoms. The two groups are being matched for age and ethnicity. By partnering the REACT programme with this ongoing genome comparison we will be able to explore the interaction of the genome with the environment in up to 8,000 individuals who had mild or no symptoms and increase our knowledge about why these people responded more mildly than others. We will be using a so-called "multi-omics" approach, which means that we will not only be looking at the genome's instructions but how they are interpreted by the body at many different levels. This information is critical to understanding who is most at risk in the future and in being able to predict, prevent or treat COVID-19 more effectively. This partnership gives the best possible chance of recruiting the right number of people who have been infected with the virus but experienced no or only mild symptoms, undertaking the necessary research and of getting vital answers quickly in order to provide an effective response to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
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