07/29 – RGD Releases COVID-19 Resources and Disease Portal Pages

The COVID-19 pandemic caused by the enveloped RNA coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 has swept the world. The virus is related to Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (SARS-CoV-1) and Middle Eastern Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (MERS-CoV), both also responsible for recent epidemics. As of July, 2020 there have been more than 4 million cases in the US and over 140,000 deaths according to the CDC, with collateral enormous economic damage. Testing involves either a nasal swab PCR-based test for the presence of the virus or a blood-based antibody test to determine previous infection. To date in the US there have been over 51 million tests performed, with 10% testing positive. Several companies are working to develop vaccines with unprecedented speed, projecting availability under optimal conditions as early as the end of 2020 or early 2021. Knowing the importance and immediacy of this world-wide health concern, RGD is pleased to announce the release of a new COVID-19 Resource Page to provide users with current scientific evidence about COVID-19. Users will be able to search peer-reviewed and pre-print COVID-19 literature using OntoMate. Disease ontology reports for Coronavirus Infectious Disease and COVID-19 have been compiled for view, as well as the use of OLGA to analyze Coronavirus Infectious Disease genes. Links to additional resources to outside COVID-19 and coronavirus resources, such as GOC, MGI, NIH and NCBI are provided. RGD has also released a COVID-19 Disease Portal Page allowing users to view all current annotations (ontologies and genes) to Coronavirus infectious disease in general, and COVID-19 specifically, across eight species. Here users can view and download a list of COVID-19 associated genes and view them in their genomic context using the genome browser, then view Disease, Phenotype, Pathway, GO and ChEBI ontology enrichment for that list of genes using the embedded Multi-Ontology Enrichment Tool. Links are provided for additional resources, such as tools, a list of potential rat models of viral infections, and COVID related links for use. To explore the COVID-19 resource page, please go to: RGD COVID-19 Resources To explore the COVID-19 disease portal page, please go to: RGD COVID-19 Disease Portal

Image Credit: CDC/Alissa Eckert, MS; Dan Higgins, MAM