On May 6, 2020, Rebekah Gundry, Ph.D., was one of only 12 investigators nationwide to receive a “COVID-19 and Its Cardiovascular Impact Rapid Response Grant” from the American Heart Association. The one-year, $100,000 grant will allow Dr. Gundry to explore the role of glycans, carbohydrates attached to proteins and lipids, in cardiovascular injuries in COVID-19 patients.

“The COVID infection predominantly targets the respiratory system, but there have been numerous reports of cardiovascular problems in these patients,” Dr. Gundry said. “But the cause of the heart injury and how it relates to the COVID infection is unknown at this point.”

Glycans play critical roles in post-viral immune reactions, including those that involve the heart. “Recent data show that individuals with blood group A have a significantly higher risk for acquiring COVID compared to non-A blood groups, where blood group O has a lower risk,” Dr. Gundry said. “That actually has been shown in other types of viral infections, as well. We know that there are these motifs, patterns of sugars, that define your ABO blood group, and these are somehow linked to your susceptibility to infection, but we don’t know the specific structures that are conveying resistance.

“Glycans are critical to the pathogenesis of disease, and they also could potentially be informative as biomarkers in predicting which patients are going to have different types of outcomes after infection.”

The Gundry lab has recently developed a new analytical platform, called GlyThyra, which is designed specifically to bring mass spectrometry-based glycomic analyses to precision medicine. Combining this powerful technology with the clinical and biobanking resources available at UNMC was a key advantage when it came to competing for the AHA grant.