Blood groups and antibodies in COVID19 infection v1.0 [COVID-19]
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Study of the contribution of blood groups and antibody expression to disease severity using blood samples from COVID19 infected individuals and uninfected control individuals
IRAS ID
283386
Contact name
Ashley M Toye
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University of Bristol
Duration of Study in the UK
5 years, 0 months, 0 days
Research summary
It is evident that individuals infected by virus infections such as COVID19 vary greatly with respect to the severity of the disease they suffer. Some individuals exhibit little or no symptoms, others have a relatively mild disease while some have a very severe disease culminating in death. The reasons for these variations in susceptibility are unknown. The objectives of this study are to understand the importance of blood groups and antibody response in the disease severity. Firstly, we wish to investigate the role of blood groups in determining likely severity of disease. Studies carried out in China suggest that Blood Group A individuals are more severely affected than Blood Group O individuals. We wish to confirm and extend these observations to include assessment of individuals who do not express ABO antigens in their tissues. These non-secretors comprise 20% of the UK population. We hypothesise that non-secretors will form the group of individuals who do not suffer disease from COVID-19. We hope to be able to stratify individuals according to risk of disease by determination of blood group status. In this way patients of greatest risk will be identified as well as those of lowest risk. Lowest risk individuals would form a group most appropriate to carry out high risk tasks in healthcare and to support the economy during the pandemic. In addition to this work, we will also study the anti-viral antibody response in the blood samples of patients who have been infected with COVID19 to better understand why some patients have a severe disease and others a very mild disease and also determine regions of viral proteins that may make good targets for diagnostic tests, vaccines or as therapeutic antibodies.
REC name
Yorkshire & The Humber - Leeds West Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
20/YH/0168
Date of REC Opinion
11 May 2020
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion