Impacting COVID-19 Outcomes through Genomics (ICOG)

The COVID-19 pandemic threatens to overwhelm the U.S. healthcare system. There is no proven therapeutic and no vaccine for the novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) causing this pandemic. The extreme clinical variability observed in response to infection is only partially explained by known risks such as: increased age, and underlying disease.

Host genomics, that is the genome of the affected patient, represents an essential set of risks and protections that have not yet been studied, understood, or integrated into patient care in the setting of this novel viral infection in humans.

The ICOG (Impacting COVID-19 Outcomes Through Genomics) Consortium includes multiple Healthcare Systems across the United States. This group is prepared to conduct rapid discovery research with prompt return to clinical care as discoveries are made.

Clinical implementation will prioritize those opportunities that can use genomic risk identification to guide triage and treatment decisions at this time of maximum need.

The ICOG consortium seeks to carry out rapid discovery of host genomic risk linked to prompt clinical implementation across multiple health systems through these three specific aims:

Rapid Genomic Risk Discovery. Through collaborative efforts within the ICOG Consortium as well as collaboration with other efforts such as the “COVID-19 Host Genetics Initiative” https://www.covid19hg.org/

Prompt Clinical Implementation. As discoveries are made, we will seek to get those results back to patients and providers for clinical decision making in days to weeks, instead of the normal timeline from discovery till clinical care implementation (months to years).

Measurement and Reporting of Clinical Outcomes. The impact of outcomes will be measured and reported to the medical community (through pre-publication sharing and peer reviewed publications).

For questions please contact the Principal Investigator: Michael F. Murray, MD michael.murray@yale.edu