Understanding cell-type specific effects of Covid-19 to develop AI-based liquid biopsy for patient triage

We still do not understand how Covid-19 affects the human body. As more autopsies are conducted more data is being released in the public domain unraveling vastly divergent pathological symptoms. Analysis shows that the virus may have cell-type specificity through its interaction with specific genes inside different cells of the human body. Our initial results (Johri et al medRxiv 2020) assaying about 200,000 cells in 4 human tissues demonstrated the preference for the virus to interact with specific cell-types that arise in the bone marrow of the body, such as Monocytes (cells that eat the virus) and Platelets, which helped us identify putative drug targets that may mediate “cytokine-storms” and coagulopathy associated with the disease.\n \n In the proposed project, we intend to identify every cell-type in the human body that may interact with the virus. Understanding the effect of this interaction on the cell’s biology will reveal potential therapeutic interventions to develop novel methodology for patient triage, inform clinicians about prioritizing specific treatments and discover novel drug targets against which existing drugs may be repurposed. We will achieve this in the following questions/aims:\n Aim 1. Dissecting the cell-type specificity of Covid-19\n Aim 2. Identify a panel of cells and genes expressed within those cells that may be used for a targeted liquid biopsy.\n Aim 3. Build machine learning models to Triage patients