GEN-COVID, impact of Host Genome on COVID-19 clinical variability

CEINGE is part of GEN-COVID

GEN-COVID is a network of more than 20 Italian Hospitals led by Professor Alessandra Renieri of the University of Siena in Italy. Physicians of several specialties from Infectious Diseases to Anesthesiology, Respiratory Diseases, Cardiology, Rheumatology, Neurology ENT specialty and Medical Genetics will proved the basis for a detailed patient Registry and Biobank of samples. The network started its activity on March 16, 2020 after IRB approval and it is collecting 2000 patients, in order to develop a genetic-based approach to understand the clinical variability of COVID-19 public health emergency.

This project aims to rapidly respond to the current COVID-19 outbreak, at time of writing worldwide cases now reach >700,000 and are rapidly rising as testing becomes more widespread. Healthcare systems are threatened and, in some instances, failing. GEN-COVID will bring a strong evidence-based approach through the most advanced science, making use of the widest possible sets of patient data and genetic material in order to identify genetic cause of clinical variability useful for the diagnosis, prognosis and personalized treatment of COVID-19.

To achieve this overall aim, we will address the following specific objectives:

1. to perform genotyping (GWAS) on 2.000 COVID-19 patients at Institute for Molecular Medicine of Finland (FIMM)
2. to perform sequencing (WES) on 000 COVID-19 patients at University of Siena (UNISI)
3. to associate the host genetic data obtained on 2.000 COVID-19 patients with severity and prognosis
4. to share phenotypic data and samples across the GEN-COVID network platform as well as in cooperation research institutions and national platforms through the GEN-COVID Disease Registry and Biobank;

1. to share genetic data through Network of Italian Genome (NIG) at CINECA, the largest Italian computing center, and one of the most important worldwide