At the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, Pandurangan Vijayanand was primed to tackle this new challenge. Trained as an immunologist with a specialization in genetics and genomics, he had already established a project called DICE, for database of immune cell gene expression, epigenomics, and expression quantitative trait loci (eQTLs), which helps elucidate the genetic basis of disease susceptibility. With DICE, scientists combine data from genome wide associate studies (GWAS) with additional supporting analyses to reveal how genetic variations affect the immune response. By querying a database of common circulating immune cell profiles, researchers gain insights into the molecular mechanisms responsible for cell type-specific immune responses observed in many different diseases.
Using DICE, Vijayanand and his team analyzed publicly-available data from GWAS for several COVID-19 phenotypes to find genetic variants with functional consequences. They assessed the effects of common COVID-19 variants and found a number that significantly affected gene expression in ...
