Untargeted metabolomics of serum samples during COVID-19 disease progression

Understanding changes in the biochemistry of an individual who is ostensibly healthy, including when they may show no overt symptoms of infection with SARS-Cov2, remains a huge challenge. Similar questions apply to understanding who is likely to live (unaided or via intervention) and who will die from COVID-19 once diagnosed, and the answers are equally unknown. Since we do not presently have any knowledge (although we know that there are cardiovascular changes that should have easily measured metabolic consequences (Zheng YY, Ma YT, Zhang JY, Xie X: COVID-19 and the cardiovascular system. Nat Rev Cardiol 2020), the best approach is to measure everything and find out. This approach is known as 'untargeted metabolomics'. We are experts in it (Kell co-invented the term 'metabolome'), and have already discovered novel measures of cardiovascular stress. We now wish to apply these to cohorts of serum samples that are already being collected in Liverpool and which will be made available to us (after treatment to remove all proteins, including virus). We anticipate that we shall be able to find markers that could be very early predictors of COVID-19 infection and prognosis.