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The quest to find genes that drive severe COVID

Genome studies have discovered some genetic risk factors for disease — and could point to treatments.
  1. Ewen Callaway
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A doctor's face on a screen is reflected in a window in an intensive care unit with medical workers treating a COVID-19 patient

People with COVID-19 being treated in an intensive care unit in El Centro, California. Credit: Melina Mara/The Washington Post/Getty

Since last March, research teams around the world have scoured the genomes of more than 100,000 people with COVID-19, hoping to find genetic clues to who will be hit hardest by an infection with the virus SARS-CoV-2. What’s emerged from this effort is a dozen or so genetic variants that have a strong statistical association with a person’s chances of developing COVID-19 and becoming gravely ill with the disease, the teams report in a summary analysis published on 8 July in Nature1.

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Nature 595, 346-348 (2021)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-021-01827-w

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