genomeweb: Team Tracks Genetic Factors Linked to Severe COVID-19, Other Viral Infections in Children

Genomics Lab

Researchers at the Children's Mercy Research Institute have been investigating rare genetic variants in a growing pediatric patient cohort in an effort to understand susceptibility to severe COVID-19 or other viral infections.

In a presentation at the American College of Medical Genetics and Genomics annual clinical meeting in April, Isabelle Thiffault, director of translational genetics at Children's Mercy and a researcher with the University of Missouri at Kansas City, shared findings from a retrospective genomic analysis on data from the Genomic Answers for Kids (GA4K) — an ongoing pediatric repository that plans to enroll some 30,000 children and their family members in the coming seven years.

The GA4K team ultimately plans to collect a wide range of molecular data types for the cohort, Thiffault noted, including exome sequencing, short-read PCR-free genome sequencing, whole-genome bisulfite sequencing, single-cell genomic analyses, 10x Genomics linked read mapping, and long-read sequence data.

Read the full article via genomeweb

Learn more about Genomic Answers for Kids at Children's Mercy