REACT-GE: Multi-omics to identify biological pathways underlying severity of SARS-CoV-2 infection.

我们知道，有些人比其他人更容易感染COVID-19，例如，如果他们年龄较大，来自少数民族或有其他健康状况。但COVID-19最大的谜团之一是，为什么一些年轻或以前健康的人会出现非常严重的症状，而像他们这样看起来风险更大的人只会患上轻微的疾病。其中一个答案可能在于基因组，即人体的指令手册，以及它如何与环境相互作用。这些相互作用可能会保护或增强对导致COVID-19的病毒感染的反应。该项目汇集了一个领先的国际研究团队，他们具有不同学科的专业知识，能够了解病毒如何与人体相互作用并确定新的治疗机会。它包括负责受COVID-19严重影响并接受重症监护的患者的研究小组（GenOMICC）和负责为NHS （Genomics England）进行基因组测序和解释的组织（Genomics England），以及负责了解病毒如何在社区传播的社区传播实时评估（REACT）计划。GenOMICC和Genomics England已经在比较两组COVID-19检测呈阳性的人的基因组和健康数据；通过医院招募的患有严重COVID-19的人对COVID-19检测呈阳性但没有或只有轻微症状的人。这两组人正在按年龄和种族进行配对。通过REACT计划与正在进行的基因组比较合作，我们将能够探索多达8,000名轻度或无症状个体的基因组与环境的相互作用，并增加我们对为什么这些人的反应比其他人更温和的了解。我们将使用一种所谓的“多组学”方法，这意味着我们不仅要研究基因组的指令，还要研究身体在许多不同层面上是如何解读这些指令的。这些信息对于了解谁在未来面临最大风险以及能够更有效地预测、预防或治疗COVID-19至关重要。这种伙伴关系提供了最好的机会，可以招募适当数量的病毒感染者，但没有症状或只有轻微症状，进行必要的研究，并迅速获得关键答案，以便对正在进行的COVID-19大流行提供有效应对。

We know that some people are more at risk from COVID-19 than others, for instance if they are older, from a minority ethnic group or have other health conditions. But one of the biggest COVID-19 puzzles is why some people who are younger or previously fit develop very severe symptoms whilst people like them who are seemingly much more at risk, only get mild illness. One of the answers may lie in the genome, the body's instruction manual, and how it interacts with the environment. These interactions may protect or amplify the response to infection with the virus that causes COVID-19. This project brings together a leading international team of researchers with the expertise across different disciplines essential to be able to understand how the virus interacts with the body and to identify new treatment opportunities. It includes the research group which is responsible for patients that have been severely affected by COVID-19 and admitted to intensive care (GenOMICC) and the organisation that sequences and interprets genomes for the NHS (Genomics England) with the REal-time Assessment of Community Transmission (REACT) programme that is responsible for understanding how the virus spreads in the community. GenOMICC and Genomics England are already comparing the genomes and health data from two groups of people who tested positive for COVID-19; people recruited through hospitals who had severe COVID-19 against people who tested positive for COVID-19 but who either had no, or only mild, symptoms. The two groups are being matched for age and ethnicity. By partnering the REACT programme with this ongoing genome comparison we will be able to explore the interaction of the genome with the environment in up to 8,000 individuals who had mild or no symptoms and increase our knowledge about why these people responded more mildly than others. We will be using a so-called "multi-omics" approach, which means that we will not only be looking at the genome's instructions but how they are interpreted by the body at many different levels. This information is critical to understanding who is most at risk in the future and in being able to predict, prevent or treat COVID-19 more effectively. This partnership gives the best possible chance of recruiting the right number of people who have been infected with the virus but experienced no or only mild symptoms, undertaking the necessary research and of getting vital answers quickly in order to provide an effective response to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.