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

我们知道，一些人比其他人更容易患新冠肺炎，例如，如果他们年龄较大，来自少数民族或有其他健康状况。但新冠肺炎上最大的谜团之一是，为什么一些更年轻或以前健康的人会出现非常严重的症状，而像他们这样的人似乎风险更高，只会患上轻微的疾病。答案之一可能在于基因组，人体的使用手册，以及它如何与环境相互作用。这些相互作用可能保护或放大对感染导致新冠肺炎的病毒的反应。该项目汇集了一支领先的国际研究团队，他们拥有跨不同学科的专业知识，这对于了解病毒如何与人体相互作用并确定新的治疗机会至关重要。它包括负责新冠肺炎严重影响和重症监护患者的研究小组，以及负责为英国国家卫生服务体系(基因组学英国)测序和解释基因组的组织，以及负责了解病毒如何在社区传播的实时社区传播评估(REACT)计划的组织。基因工程国际公司和英国基因公司已经在比较两组新冠肺炎检测呈阳性的患者的基因组和健康数据；一组是通过医院招募的，患有严重新冠肺炎的患者；另一组是新冠肺炎检测呈阳性但没有症状或只有轻微症状的患者。这两个群体在年龄和种族方面是匹配的。通过将REPACT计划与正在进行的基因组比较相结合，我们将能够在多达8000名有轻微症状或没有症状的人中探索基因组与环境的相互作用，并增加我们对这些人为什么比其他人反应更温和的了解。我们将使用所谓的“多组学”方法，这意味着我们不仅要研究基因组的指令，还要研究身体如何在许多不同的层面上解释它们。这些信息对于了解未来谁面临的风险最大，以及能够更有效地预测、预防或治疗新冠肺炎至关重要。这一合作伙伴关系提供了尽可能最好的机会，招募适当数量的病毒感染者，但没有或只出现轻微症状，进行必要的研究，并迅速获得重要答案，以便有效应对正在发生的新冠肺炎大流行。

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.