Mapping COVID-19 effects and treatments in patients’ blood

A new coalition of more than 500 scientists from 18 countries, involving UCL, will data on COVID-19 gleaned from the use of mass spectrometry techniques which examine people's blood and other biomarkers. Announced in The Lancet today, and coordinated from The University of Manchester, the COVID-19 MS Coalition is made up of many of the world's leading mass spectrometry experts who will work together to look at the ways in which the novel coro rus is present in patients' blood and examine in detail how the virus is structured. The aim is to refine testing approaches, stratify treatment options, determine isolation requirements and bring much needed speed into measurement aspects of novel therapeutic development programmes - for COVID-19 and future threats. Mass spectrometry (MS) is able to measure molecules that change in a patient's blood as the infection takes hold. It can be used to find out what they are, and how many of them there are. These measurements provide precise and reproducible diagnostic data at the molecular level that can complement information from genomic studies. The coalition partners are also looking for biomarkers that will determine how a given individual will respond to the virus.