Division of Infectious Diseases Emerging and Re-emerging Pathogens Program

Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19), caused by the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, has now become a global pandemic that is expected to sicken millions of people and seriously curtail the global economy. Viral genome sequencing is a critical tool for better understanding how this virus is able spread and cause disease. To aid in these critical efforts, we have assembled a team of clinical scientists and biomedical researchers to assemble the genomes of hundreds of SARS-CoV-2 viruses from COVID-19 patients across the Chicago area. By comparing these virus sequences to others across the city, the country, and the world, we will better understand how the virus is spreading and how the immune system is driving the virus to adapt. Furthermore, clinical information from infected patients will be used to determine whether particular viral mutations correlate with disease severity. We have already observed a number of newly arising mutations in SARS-CoV-2 viruses in the United States that appear only rarely elsewhere in the world. Using structural models of the viral protein and biochemical assays in the lab, we are exploring how these mutations are impacting protein function as well as their ability to be targeted by new antiviral drugs under development. Together, these studies will increase our understanding of SARS-CoV-2 from the level of the pandemic to patients to proteins, and will advance scientific avenues towards the development of new diagnostic and therapeutic tools to combat COVID-19.

This study is funded by a grant from the Dixon family and the EREPP.