Benjamin Moutier, Senior Vice-President, Vaccines and Immune Therapies, AstraZeneca, shared a post on LinkedIn:
“While it’s commonly understood that viruses have a role in chronic disease risk, what’s less understood is why that risk differs among people.
Published in Nature Portfolio, my colleagues at AstraZeneca Centre for Genomics Research, working with academic partners, explore this further by examining a common childhood virus, Epstein-Barr Virus (EBV), using large-scale genomic and health data from 750,000 individuals.
Using a novel, scalable computational approach, the team found 22 DNA variants linked to both higher EBV activity and chronic disease risk, helping us better understand the relationship between our unique DNA, a common virus and risk of certain chronic diseases.
These findings deepen our understanding of how our unique DNA shapes viral behavior, providing insights that can ultimately inform how we predict and potentially prevent long‑term health consequences.
I’m proud of our teams across AstraZeneca working to advance this kind of foundational science, which helps guide the future of immune‑driven research.
Get the full breakdown in our latest What Science Can Do story from Slavé Petrovski Petrovski and team.”