National Health Service (NHS): Government against COVID-19 ^{Funding Support}

Entity: National Health Service (NHS)

Category: Funding Support

Description: The NHS stands for the National Health Service. It refers to the Government-funded medical and health care services that everyone living in the UK can use without being asked to pay the full cost of the service.

1. Programme Title: COVID-19 Genomics UK (COG-UK) Consortium

Summary: NHS participates in the 'COVID-19 Genomics UK (COG-UK) Consortium', a collaboration between the NHS, Public Health England and other UK public health agencies, the Wellcome Sanger Institute, University of Cambridge and other academic institutions. The COVID-19 Genomics UK (COG-UK) Consortium aims to increase the current capacity for SARS-CoV-2 genetic sequencing in the UK. This sequencing data will be used to understand the epidemiology and spread of the virus, and to monitor and evaluate interventions for COVID-19. SARS-CoV-2 genomic data will be integrated with NHS electronic health records and other existing genomic data to generate insights into susceptibility to COVID-19. From within the DPHPC, Professor John Danesh is a member of the COG-UK Steering Group, Dr Ewan Harrison will serve as the Scientific Project Manager and Dr Michael Chapman will lead the health informatics component.

+ Beneficiaries:

Belfast Health and Social Care Trust, Regional Virus Laboratory
Cardiff University
EMBL-EBI (European Bioinformatics Institute)
Genomics England Limited
Genomics Partnership Wales
Advanced Research Computing at Cardiff
Supercomputing Wales
Public Health Wales NHS Trust
Imperial College London
MRC-University of Glasgow Centre for Virus Research
Public Health Agency
Public Health England
Public Health Scotland
Public Health Wales NHS Trust's Pathogen Genomics Unit
Quadram Institute
Queen's University Belfast
The Centre for Genomic Pathogen Surveillance
University College London
University of Birmingham
Queen's University Belfast, Genomics Core Technology Unit
Francis Crick Institute
University of Edinburgh
University of Exeter
Northumbria University
University of Nottingham
University of Oxford
Big Data Institute
University of Portsmouth
Portsmouth Hospitals NHS Trust
University of Sheffield
Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
Wellcome Sanger Institute
West of Scotland Specialist Virology Centre
NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde
University of Cambridge:
Department of Veterinary Medicine
Cambridge University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust
Department of Medicine
Division of Virology, Department of Pathology;
Department of Pathology
Cambridge Institute for Therapeutic Immunology and Infectious Disease

2. Programme Title: Genomics Partnership Wales (GPW)

Summary: In July 2017, the Genomics for Precision Medicine Strategy was launched by Vaughan Gething, Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Services, and sets out Welsh Government’s ambitious plan “to create a sustainable, internationally-competitive environment for genetics and genomics to improve health and healthcare provision for the people of Wales”. Genomics Partnership Wales (GPW) – Partneriaeth Genomeg Cymru – has been formed to establish a united approach to genomics in Wales and represents a number of organisations across several disciplines coming together to deliver a programme of work that will enable the ambition and commitment laid out in the Genomics Strategy to be realised. Key organisations include Welsh Government, the All Wales Medical Genetics Service, Wales Gene Park, Public Health Wales, Cardiff and Vale University Health Board, Higher Education Institutions in Wales as well as other stakeholders and collaborators. The GPW project is also part of the global project 'The COVID-19 Host Genetics Initiative'

Affiliation: Cardiff University, Wales Gene Park, All Wales Medical Geneomics Service, MRC Centre for Neuropsychiatric Genetics and Genomics, SAIL databank (Swansea University) and NHS.

Research question: How does variation in the human genome contribute to COVID-19 susceptibility and disease severity?

Study design: Genomics Partnership Wales, Wales Gene Park, and the All Wales Medical Genomics Service are collaborating with colleagues from Cardiff University Division of Infection and Immunity, MRC Centre for Neuropsychiatric Genetics and Genomics, and the SAIL databank (Swansea University). They will undertake genomic analysis (SNP genotyping and whole genome sequencing) of patients with severe COVID-19. The genomic data will be linked to pathogen genomes, transcriptomics, immune phenotyping and health outcome data, with the aim of contributing to national and international efforts to understand the host genomic determinants of COVID-19 susceptibility and severity.

Study Type: Prospective

Genetic analysis: WGS; GWAS

Assays planned: Viral sequencing, Transcriptomics, Immune profiling

Investigators: Andrew Fry, Julian Sampson, Sian Morgan, Ian Tully, Michaela John

4. Programme Title: NHSX.

Summary: NHS England and NHS Improvement direct and refer funds to NHSX, agency involving in multiple COVID-19 projects.

5. Programme Title: 'Markers of disease: identifying bacterial secondary infections in COVID+ patients'

Led by: Professor Andrew Roe, University of Glasgow

Co-investigators and institutions:

Professor Michael Barrett, University of Glasgow
Professor Alistair Leonard, University of Glasgow, NHS
Dr Malcolm Sim, NHS
Dr Malcolm Watson, NHS

Project summary: The current COVID pandemic has led to an urgent need to better understand how and why certain patients become seriously ill or die. Secondary bacterial infections are a major contributing factor in a proportion of these more serious cases. Using their established methods to study bacterial sepsis, they want to analyse COVID+ patients and perform metabolomics to measure key markers they know are associated with bacterial infection. The result: more accurate and appropriate diagnosis and allocation of anti-bacterial treatment. They will select the most common examples of Gram positive and Gram negative organisms associated with secondary infections for detailed analysis.

Funder: Chief Scientist Office

Total award: £56,970