What is this study about?

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Death from critical illness is strongly affected by genetics

Susceptibility to infection, including sepsis and influenza is known very strongly genetically determined. There are strong reasons to believe the same is true for COVID-19.

In critical illness, a complex cascade of immune signals leads to failure of critical organ systems and death. These events are often not specific to a particular type of infection - they can happen to any patient with a severe infection. Although we know that susceptibility to a particular bug, such as the influenza virus, SARS-CoV-2 (the coronavirus that causes COVID-19), or a bacteria like Staphylococcus aureus, is genetic, it is harder to tell if there are specific genes that alter a patient's chance of survival once they are already desperately sick with sepsis. But we do know that the immune system plays a key role in causing organ failure in sepsis, and in other forms of critical illness. Genetic differences have a very strong impact on immune function.

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How to look for answers

There are millions of DNA sequence differences between any pair of humans. Any of these could be important in determining the outcome in sepsis. Finding the ones that matter requires us to look at DNA from huge numbers of patients. We need to look at DNA from thousands of people in order to find robust genetic associations with outcomes. This is urgent, because if we can achieve it then we may be able to find treatments that will ultimately save lives.

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GCP training, and name recorded on delegation log required to be able to recruit to this study

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Link to GenOMICC study protocol

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Flowchart