Western New York health care and medical researchers are conducting a study that will use next-generation sequencing to identify biomarkers of immune response to COVID-19 that could be used to predict which patients are likely to progress to severe infection that would require more intensive care.
The goal is to provide medical professionals with a blood test that will help them to better prognose and triage patients with COVID-19. The study, the Western New York Immunogenomic COVID-19 Study, is conducted by Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center, Catholic Health and the University at Buffalo.
The WNY Immunogenomic COVID-19 study originated from an exchange between two senior leaders at Roswell Park: Kunle Odunsi, and Carl Morrison.
“We believe we can limit COVID-19’s deadly impact by marrying thoughtful strategy to next-generation sequencing technology—an opportunity that we never had before with any previous pandemic, using technology that in a few short years has changed the way we detect, diagnose and treat cancer,” Odunsi, deputy director, the Robert, Anne & Lew Wallace Endowed Chair in Cancer Immunotherapy, and chair of Gynecologic Oncology at Roswell Park, said in a statement.
“We’ve seen a huge variation in how COVID-19 affects people. Some are not sick at all, some get flu-like symptoms for a few days, and some become very sick and develop symptoms that can become life-threatening,” Morrison, who is senior vice president of Scientific Development and Integrative Medicine at the cancer center, said in a statement.
Three collaborating organizations will work with Roswell Park:
Catholic Health will join Roswell Park as a clinical site for the study, providing blood from consenting patients who test positive for COVID-19 to be sequenced and analyzed.
The University at Buffalo, through its Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences and School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences will focus on the interface of virus-cancer-immunology research initiatives that will help facilitate the study.
Thermo Fisher Scientific will provide data analysis and defray the costs of the equipment and chemical reagents that are central to this work.
Gene Morse, SUNY Distinguished Professor, UB School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, and director of the Global Virus Network Center of Excellence at The University of Buffalo, is building scientific collaborations that focus on the interface of virus-cancer-immunology research initiatives that will facilitate the study. He will examine the blood samples of COVID-19 patients for immune-pharmacodynamic markers to quantify antiviral and immune-therapeutics activity in relation to the stages of COVID-19 infection and the development of antibodies following infection.
The team will sequence immune receptors from both T cells and B cells, the two major types of immune cells our bodies enlist in order to fight off viruses like SARS-CoV-2, the particular coronavirus that causes COVID-19.
A fund has been established to support the initiative, with 11 Day Power Play Inc., a nonprofit that raises funds for pressing medical research. It has provided a leadership gift of $150,000 toward the project’s estimated cost of $1 million.
Funds donated to Roswell Park’s COVID-19 Response Fund: give.roswellpark.org/COVID-19.
