March 7, 2022

expert reaction to study looking at genetic factors associated with predisposition for COVID-19 critical illness

A study, published in Nature, looked at genetic factors associated with predisposition for COVID-19 critical illness.

This Roundup accompanied an SMC Briefing.

Prof Andrew Mumford, Professor of Haematology, University of Bristol, said:

“Baillie and colleagues harness the world-leading genomic research infrastructure in the UK and apply powerful analytical approaches to explore underlying genetic factors that contribute to differences in the severity of COVID-19 following SARS-CoV-2 infection.  They find that naturally occurring variation in multiple genes in the immune, inflammation and coagulation pathways together influence disease severity, confirming the complex and multi-step pathology underlying COVID-19.

“Understanding the genomic basis of the response to COVID-19 has the potential to improve prediction of whether individual patients will develop severe disease.  Some of the genes identified in this study are already known to be targets for existing therapies for COVID-19.  Others represent novel new drug targets that are exciting candidates for future clinical study.”

‘Whole genome sequencing reveals host factors underlying critical Covid-19’ by Athanasios Kousathanas et al. was published in Nature at 16:00 UK time on Monday 7 March 2022.

DOI: 10.1038/s41586-022-04576-6

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-04576-6

All our previous output on this subject can be seen at this weblink:

www.sciencemediacentre.org/tag/covid-19

Declared interests

None received.