The discovery by the “Mario Negri” Institute while studying the population of Bergamo: the project, in its initial phase, received significant support from Fondazione Pesenti.
Origin, a research project launched by the Mario Negri Institute with early funding from Fondazione Pesenti, has now been published in the journal iScience and presented to both institutions and the public.
This is a one-of-a-kind study. No other research center in the world has undertaken such an extensive and detailed investigation focused on a single geographic area. In the province of Bergamo, a region tragically impacted during the early waves of the pandemic, 9,704 individuals participated by responding to detailed health questionnaires related to Covid-19.
Initiated in 2020, Project Origin set out to explore genetic factors that influence susceptibility to and severity of Covid-19. The study identified a genetic correlation between the risk of developing severe illness and the Vindija genome, a genetic sequence from a Neanderthal individual who lived about 50,000 years ago.
“Three out of six genes associated with a higher risk of severe disease,” explains Giuseppe Remuzzi, Director of the Mario Negri Institute, “were inherited from Neanderthals.”
There is a concrete finding: about 30% of those who experienced severe Covid had a first-degree relative who died due to the virus. Among the Origin patients admitted to intensive care, 33% carried the Neanderthal haplotype; those who carried this haplotype had a nearly three times higher risk of ending up in intensive care.
In addition, 17 new genomic regions (loci) have been identified, of which 10 are potentially associated with severe disease and 7 with the risk of contracting the infection — something never seen before. In particular, the 2q14.3 locus is of particular interest because it includes a gene linked to a protein that increases only in severe cases of Covid; this could become a starting point for the development of new therapies.
Fondazione Pesenti, whose mission is deeply rooted in supporting research and innovation, expressed pride in having contributed to such a groundbreaking and meaningful project.
INSIGHTS