Even as tens of thousands of Americans test positive for COVID-19 each day, physicians still aren’t sure why some people experience mild to no symptoms while others become critically ill. New research led by Robert E. Gerszten, MD, Chief of the Division of Cardiovascular Medicine at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) sheds new light on the genetic risk factors that make individuals more or less susceptible to severe COVID-19. The findings, published in a letter in the New England Journal of Medicine, illuminate the mechanisms underlying COVID-19, and potentially open the door to novel treatments for the disease.
“Patients with COVID-19 display a wide array of clinical manifestations and degrees of severity, ranging from flu-like symptoms to acute respiratory distress,” said Gerszten, who is also Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. “While pre-existing conditions, particularly cardiovascular and metabolic disease, are risk factors for disease severity and outcomes, the underlying reasons that some people develop life threatening disease while others remain asymptomatic are not well understood.”
A growing body of genetic evidence from patients in China, Europe and the Unites States links COVID-19 outcomes to variations in two regions of the human genome, findings which were published in the NEJM. But the statistical association doesn’t explain how the differences modulate disease. To do that, scientists need to understand which proteins these sections of the genome code for and the role these proteins play in the body in the context of disease.
