B3566 - Serological testing for COVID-19 in ALPSAC G0/G1 - 12/07/2020

B number: 
B3566
Principal applicant name: 
Nicholas Timpson | University of Bristol (United Kingdom)
Co-applicants: 
Title of project: 
Serological testing for COVID-19 in ALPSAC (G0/G1)
Proposal summary: 

The work is an effort to collect serological data on past infection status within the population based cohorts of the UK – in particular a set of cohorts which have been selected to report on 4 important axes of variation – ethnicity, age, socio-economic status and geography. The key thing for us is that we are able to move swiftly to capture the signature of infection and that we are able to exercise the cohorts (and all they bring re. retrospective data and new sample and data collection capacity) whilst being complementary to the efforts of existing studies – importantly REACT 2 and UKBB. We have been focusing on LFT and talking to those testing and developing kits. We have been pursuing the Orient gene kit as a strong option here – given performance, testing and our aim to use this as an epidemiological tool rather than an individually relevant test solution. Paul Elliott has been extremely generous with time and details re. the REACT 2 study and we are now proceeding with Orient gene as a viable option (home-based lateral flow antibody testing). We have been able to work with Peter Diggle (Lancaster) to develop the structure of our sampling frame across the 6 cohorts and now are primed to get approval locally (a process already started re. the PPI around these tests) in order to deliver kits to participants.

Impact of research: 
This work has the chance to assess antibody response VS infection rate VS clinical presentation in Bristol with a home-based test able also to compare patters in Bristol to those in other (demographically different) cities/areas. Careful interpretation of the data will be required, however this work does have the chance to inform understanding of infection, prevalence, age differences, socio-demographic gradients, life course contributions to outcomes and susceptibility and the utility of this form of testing.
Date proposal received: 
Monday, 6 July, 2020
Date proposal approved: 
Monday, 6 July, 2020
Keywords: 
Immunology, Infection, serological testing, COVID-19, Infection, serology