John McDermott

Project: Covid Host Genetics Study (COHGEN)

The primary objective is to assess whether individual genetic variation is associated with COVID-19 disease severity. The secondary objectives are to assess underlying variation on length of hospital stay, need for ventilation, cardiac involvement, renal involvement and need for renal replacement therapy. Also assess confounding factors which could impact disease severity, a subset of patients will have the SARS-Cov-2 viral genome sequenced via nanopore sequencing to ensure that disease severity is not primarily associated with more virulent underlying strains. Samples will also be assessed for co-infection through metagenome sequencing approaches to ensure that severity is not related to the cumulative impact of multiple viral species.