The Scientist by Marla Broadfoot 4/17/2020
Hundreds of scientists around the globe are launching studies in search of genes that could explain why some people fall victim to coronavirus infection while others escape relatively unscathed.
Among the many mysteries that remain about COVID-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus, is why it hits some people harder than others. Millions of people have been infected, but many never get sick. Those who do can experience an ever-expanding array of symptoms, including loss of smell or taste, pink eye, digestive issues, fever, cough, and difficulty breathing. Although the elderly, those with pre-existing conditions such as heart disease, and men are most likely to suffer severe complications, hundreds of young and previously healthy people have died from the disease in the US alone.
In recent weeks, researchers have begun asking whether genetics could influence the severity of symptoms.
So far, they know “basically nothing,†Wendy Chung, a clinical geneticist and physician at Columbia University, tells The Scientist. She is one of hundreds of scientists launching studies to interrogate the human genome for answers. Chung and her team are racing to “recycle†and bank nasal swabs and other clinical samples from COVID-19 patients across the New York-Presbyterian Hospital System, currently in the epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic.
The researchers plan to extract the patients’ DNA and scan the genomes for tiny sequence variations associated with symptoms listed in their electronic health records.
Prior research has uncovered gene variants that can alter a person’s chances of contracting an infectious disease. The most famous example is a mutation in the CCR5 gene, which offers protection against HIV.
More:
https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/dna-could-hold-clues-to-varying-severity-of-covid-19-67435
