Key points from article :
UK Biobank, with its samples from 500,000 volunteers, now adding Covid-19 data.
To know why people without underlying health conditions can develop severe illness.
Answer questions such as: “What are the differences in their genetics?"
"Are there differences in the genes related to their immune response?"
"Are there differences in their underlying health?"
Researchers will be scouring the entire genome, searching for tiny variations in DNA.
Area of particular interest is ACE2 gene, which helps make a receptor allowing virus entry.
Past research show some diseases can make people with genetic variation, especially ill.
"Possibility that diversity in people’s response to COVID-19 rooted in virus' sequence diversity."
Another possibility: "it is rooted in patients' genetic diversity. Or a combination of both.”
Researchers from UK Biobank, Rockefeller University, University of Helsinki, and deCODE Genetics.
