What's involved?
Are you interested in signing-up but want to learn more about what you'll be asked to do? Find out here.
We're inviting people to join Coronagenes. This is a research study looking at the signs and symptoms of the coronavirus disease 19 (COVID-19) pandemic. It’s caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2).
We aim to discover why some people get ill from COVID-19 and others don't. We also hope to find any genes influencing the severity or duration of disease. People who have not had the disease or any symptoms are just as important to the study as people who have. You can help to speed up the process of our research, if you provide your DNA data from a company.
You can take part if you:
- Are aged 16 or over
- Have access to the internet to complete the questionnaire
Taking part in the study will involve:
- Signing-up using our online form
- Reading our online volunteer information
- Consenting to the study online
- Completing an online questionnaire
- If you have DNA data from a company, upload the file
- If you develop any signs or symptoms of COVID-19, please complete our daily surveys
- Provide a saliva sample, if you don't have DNA data from a company
- Possibly provide a finger-prick blood sample for COVID-19 testing
Please note: The saliva and finger-prick blood sample kits will not be sent out until current UK lockdown measures are lifted. We also will not be providing any return of personal genetic results. However, we will share combined results from the study through this website, social media and in our newsletters.
Your genetic material (DNA) will be taken from your saliva and studied by researchers. This may include whole genome sequencing, where we’d read and study all 6 billion letters of your DNA. This means we can look at whether any changes in the DNA seem to be important in health and disease. If a very high number of people volunteer, we will not be able to send everyone saliva or blood sample kits.
If we ask you to provide a small blood sample, it will be tested for the presence of antibodies, related to SARS-CoV-2. This will give us some information on who is likely to have been exposed to the virus and who hasn’t. We will only send the test kits in future once the technology has improved and results are more reliable. However, if the antibody response people make proves not to be long lasting, a test can only inform about a single point of time. Unfortunately, we're not in a position to return the results of this test to you.
If you're interested in signing up you can join the study by clicking the link below: