Neanderthal genes VS COVID-19-
Angeline Upchurch
This was a research about the effect of Neanderthal DNA still having a trace in certain groups of humans and how The trace of DNA can affect hell these people handle COVID. In the article “Neanderthal genes and people today may raise risk of severe COVID-19” they say a stretch of DNA on human chromosome three was previously found to be associated with an increased risk of developing severe disease from coronavirus infection and being hospitalized. Because “the stretch on the chromosome three contains multiple genetic variants that are almost always inherited together forming a block known as a haploid and those variance can cause more severe diseases.”This was a surprise because “about half of people from south Asia especially from Bangladesh and about q6% of people in Europe carry some Neanderthal DNA.” The article did say that having the gene did not automatically mean that you would get Covid or you would be a risk, but, there was data shown in the UK that people from south Asia were twice as likely to get Covid then the rest of the population. The article also said that having this haploid could give advantage in fighting off other pathogens such as Cholera which was a speculation. The article ends off saying that even though this could be a possibility of why some people may be getting affected by Covid there are still other social and environmental factors that determine risk and should be ready.
What do you think of the neanderthal gene traces having an impact on how people react to COVID?
Do you think there's any truth to this?
How much effect do you think the neanderthal could have on other things and do you think we could use the neanderthal DNA to help with other diseases?
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/covid-19-coronavirus-neandertal-genes-risk-severe-infection
Thank you for sharing, this is very interesting! I think that it is very interesting that neanderthal DNA increases risk for severe cases of COVID-19, I have read a similar thing about type A blood, it increases the risk for getting a severe case of COVID-19. I think that this does have an impact in response to COVID-19, however, other there are numerous other health factors that could impact the severity of COVID-19.
ReplyDeleteCarissa Bersche
Cool topic! I actually just read an article about how people with blood type O have a decreased risk of getting COVID-19. This article and the other article I read really shows how important it is to study our genetic makeup in order to discover these types of things. Thanks for sharing!
ReplyDelete-Trinity Mathis
This shows how wide of an impact genetics has on organisms and this is why genetic testing should definitely be a main focus of study.
ReplyDelete-Shirin Saha
i do think there could be some truth to this, i think the gene traces have an impact because there's a sort of natural evolutionary race between predator and prey, our genes have grown to be immune to many diseases so new ones like covid could catch us by surprise genetically. So in theory some immunity genes could help with other diseases to an extent. - Nathan Clark
ReplyDeleteI believe there is truth in this because just as this article is saying, there have been many discoveries that speak of different genetic makeups being impacted by COVID-19 differently.
ReplyDelete-Raquel Morgens
This is really interesting. I think there is some truth to this statement, because it Africa the cases and number of the deaths are super low and people are not really social distancing or wearing masks. Neanderthal genes are mostly found in non-Africans, so maybe that's part of the reason why Africans are doing better with Covid-19.
ReplyDelete