Roser, Group Leader at the Wellcome Sanger Institute and Member of the CTR, will use single-cell technologies to understand human immune response to SARS-CoV-2 infection and the progression of the disease.
Joint project leader with Esteban Ballestar from the Josep Carreras Institute, Roser and her collaborators will study positive samples from up to 50 COVID-19 patients using single-cell RNA sequencing methods, to create a cell atlas of these immune cells. Patients will include people with autoimmune diseases, such as systemic lupus erythematosus, rheumatoid arthritis, psoriasis, and multiple sclerosis, as well as immunodeficient patients, to help understand the immune response and progression of SARS-CoV-2 infection.
CZI is supporting five projects studying COVID-19 progression, with a total of $750,000 funding. These projects will create single-cell datasets from donors infected by SARS-CoV-2 and provide critical insights into how the virus infects humans, which cell types are involved, and how the disease progresses.
The five new projects will use similar approaches to the COVID-19 Cell Atlas work with the Sanger Institute and Human Cell Atlas consortium that recently revealed key nose cells were likely entry points for the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus. This research was also partly funded by CZI. The new projects will profile cells in infected tissues and the immune system in COVID-19 patients.
“I’m delighted that the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative is supporting this single-cell work. Our study will characterize the immune response of COVID-19 patients with pre-existing immune conditions. Creating a cell atlas of these immune cells will help understand how the immune system reacts to the virus, and the host susceptibility to SARS-CoV-2 infection.”
Roser Vento-Tormo, Group Leader at the Wellcome Sanger Institute
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