Approved Research

HLA associated risk for COVID-19 disease severity

Lay summary

Each individual's immune system responds to COVID-19 infection in a manner that is partially determined by their genome.  We seek to understand if COVID-19 disease severity can be predicted based upon part of an individual's genome known as their HLA type.    If a good predictive model is found it could help identify individuals that are at higher risk of complications or death from COVID-19 infection.   This would permit steps to be taken to ensure those at higher risk be identified, and could also be used to identify useful approaches for vaccines for those that are at higher risk.