StemCell Therapy

(WZAW) -- Scientists around the world are racing to understand COVID-19 and the novel coronavirus that causes the disease. Among the questions theyre asking is why do most people who are infected show mild to moderate symptoms, or possibly no symptoms at all, whereas others develop a severe form of the disease.

To help gather more insights, DNA company 23andMe has launched a research study to help determine whether genetics may play a role. 23andMes unique research model, with millions of customers consenting to participate, offers their scientists a powerful tool for potential insight into the role genetics may play in explaining differences in the severity of the novel coronavirus.

With more than 400,000 existing 23andMe customers already enrolled to participate, including several thousand whove confirmed they had the virus, 23andMe is opened enrollment to people who have been hospitalized with the disease but are not currently customers. Opening up the research to individuals with more severe symptoms will increase their ability to learn how genes may play a role in the severity of this disease.

Joyce Tung, vice president of research at 23andMe joined NewsChannel 7 at 4 on Tuesday to talk about how the research is helping to understand the role genetics plays in the severity of COVID-19 symptoms.

Based on our past studies on infectious diseases, for some of those we saw that genes for example that are part of the immune system influence the susceptibility too in severity of those diseases, Tung explained.

Tung said researchers hope genetics can give us insights into the biological pathways in humans that influence the severity of the disease.

And perhaps with this information, we can develop different treatments, she added.

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Researchers look at the role genetics play in the severity of coronavirus symptoms - WSAW

This entry was posted on May 27, 2020 at 11:43 am and is filed under Genetics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed. |