GEN-COVID: an Italian project for the identification of genetic determinants associated with the clinical variability of COVID-19
Published: 22 November 2021
The GEN-COVID consortium started its activity on March 16th 2021 under the coordination of Professor Alessandra Renieri (University of Siena). The consortium includes 40 Italian Hospitals, 16 Continuity Assistance Special Units (USCA) and 8 Departments of Preventive Medicine, and brings together physicians of several different specialties (including infectious disease, medical genetics, anesthesiology, cardiology, neurology and many others). As of today the consortium collected clinical data and genomic sequences of more than 3000 COVID-19 Italian patients. These data are a very important source of information for the study of the genetic variability associated with different clinical manifestations of COVID-19 in patients, and will likely provide useful information in the future for the diagnosis, prognosis and eventually the personalized treatment of the disease.
To ensure high quality standards and facilitate data sharing, comparison and integration with similar projects, all the data were analyzed using existing tools, protocols and data formats acknowledged by the international scientific community. Moreover, thanks to the cooperation with pre-existing national infrastructures, a project specific biobank, the GEN-COVID Biobank (GCB), and a dedicated patients registry, the GEN-COVID Patient Registry (GCPR), were established. All the data and samples are available through the Siena Genetic Biobank. Thanks to these premises the consortium collected high quality biological and patient data, together with the corresponding metadata, in a short span of time. These samples were genotyped and their exome sequenced (WES). Analyses results were archived and shared through the GEN-COVID Genetic Data Repository (GCGDR), a consortium specific database born from the collaboration of GEN-COVID with the Network of Italian Genome (NIG) of CINECA, one of the main computational centres in Italy.
The GEN-COVID consortium integrates with the COVID-19 Host Genetic Initiative, an international project which aims to obtain a comprehensive catalogue of the genetic variants associated with COVID-19 susceptibility and severity to improve our knowledge of the biology of SARS-CoV-2 infection and to allow the early identification of individuals with an increased risk to develop a more severe form of the disease. Additional knowledge obtained through the project could also be highly useful for repurposing commercial drugs for COVID-19 treatment. Finally, the consortium offers a place of discussion to all the researchers interested in the study of host genetics.
More information about the project’s aims and how to join the consortium can be found on the official GEN-COVID website at the following link.
Source: GEN-COVID