Sepsis is a complex disease. Previously, Dr Bob Hancock and his team at UBC found that patients suffering from sepsis can be grouped into 5 distinct endotypes. While patients in each group all develop sepsis, the underlying gene expression pathways and molecular phenotypes are distinct for each group, and correlated with different clinical outcomes. This means it may be possible to use molecular diagnostics to predict the likely severity of a patient's disease and apply knowledge-driven clinical management in treating sepsis.
It’s now recognized that many of the deaths in patients with COVID-19 are from sepsis. This June, Dr Hancock was awarded CIHR COVID-19 Rapid Response Funding to characterize sepsis endotypes in patients with severe COVID-19. In collaboration with researchers and clinicians in BC, Quebec, and Ontario, his team will be collecting blood samples from patients and analyzing which genes are expressed in the immune cells of patients. Using this information, they will be able to define sets of genes whose expression levels are correlated with future disease severity. In addition to driving evidence-based clinical management, their findings may also allow others to develop targeted therapies to treat COVID-19-related sepsis.
Learn more in this highlight and radio interview from CityNews and interviews with CFAX 1070 Radio, CJRJ Radio and Healthing.ca.
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