Olink and the COVID-19 pandemic

Current number of planned/ongoing studies using Olink = 69

As a provider of protein biomarker solutions for scientists seeking to re-shape future healthcare, Olink is taking the COVID-19 pandemic situation extremely seriously and is committed to support the crucial studies that will help better understand and eventually to better treat the disease.

See all applications related to COVID-19

Actions speak louder than words

Olink’s protein biomarker panels are already being used in a significant number of on-going and planned COVID-19 studies across North America, Europe and Asia, covering a range of objectives, including:

Prediction & prognosis:

Understand basic biology and prognosis of disease severity
Patient stratification by disease severity
Longitudinal sampling (admission to recovery vs. death)
Prediction of cytokine release storms in COVID-19 patients
Prediction/prevention of ARDS (Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome)
Outcome predictions in CVD patients with COVID19

Therapies:

Evaluation of re-purposed therapeutics
Patients undergoing plasma-exchange
Remdesivir
IFNbeta-1
IL-6
Bradykinin pathways (repurposed rare disease drug)
Chloroquine, Hydroxychloroquine,
Ruxolitinib
Camostat
Azithromycin
Lopinavir/Ritonavi.
Effect of p38 inhibition on COVID-19 patients and cytokine storm
Cardiac markers to determine use of ACE2 inhibitors
Re-purposed immunotherapy for allergies

Comorbidities:

Cancer
Cardiovascular disease
BMI
Renal dysfunction
Neurological effects
Hematological malignancies
Dermatological diseases
HIV

You can read much more about how Olink is being used right now in COVID-19 research by downloading our informative and interactive infographic:

Go to infographic

Olink and drug repositioning and vaccine development for COVID-19

It is critical that solutions for the current COVID-19 pandemic are developed as quickly, efficiently and safely as possible. Pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies are making great efforts to meet the current needs, repurposing drugs and developing both traditional and novel vaccines. Speeding up the process, however, carries many risks and unexpected problems may appear, for example at later stages of vaccine development. Olink’s broad protein biomarker profiling solution can mitigate these risks by providing comprehensive, actionable insights into the relevant biology for these new vaccines or repurposed drugs. This enables problems to be detected at earlier stages, as well as providing a better understanding of how they impact patients in the context of COVID-19. To access a brief but comprehensive presentation with more information around these issues, please use the button below:

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“Olink has the most comprehensive solution available to help to rapidly identify the proteins and pathways involved in COVID-19 pathophysiology and to better understand the disease and its treatment.

I am proud that we are taking our social responsibility during this pandemic by actively supporting the research community to carry out the critical research that is so desperately needed”.

Ida Grundberg PhD, Chief Scientific Officer, Olink

Latest news on COVID-19 research using Olink

As new information becomes available about specific ongoing COVID-19 studies using Olink panels, we will update our summary page (link below). Some current highlights include:

Inflammatory protein profiles in patients with asthma & COPD are similar to those seen in severe COVID-19
A group from Universidad de Cartagena in Colombia has uncovered inflammatory protein profiles in patients suffering from respiratory diseases that are strikingly similar to those reported in patients with severe COVID-19. Pathway enrichment analysis identified several overlapping proteins associated with chemokine signaling pathways related to response to viral infection. The authors suggest that the dysregulation of chemokine networks observed in COPD patients could be linked to their increased risk of severe COVID-19. The study is available as a preprint on medRxiv – link
Longitudinal proteomic profiling of high-risk patients with COVID-19
A team from Imperial College London has carried out dense, longitudinal sampling of end-stage kidney disease (ESKD) patients with COVID-19, identifying multiple protein markers of disease severity and predictors of fatal outcomes. A preprint manuscript, along with free access to the raw protein data is now available on medRxiv – link
Freely available data from the largest longitudinal proteomics study on COVID-19 to-date
A collaboration between the prestigious Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and Olink has measured >1400 proteins in a longitudinal study of almost 400 COVID-19 patients and controls. The raw data from this study (~1.3 million protein measurements and associated clinical parameters) is now publicly available via the Olink website – link
- An interview with one of the principal authors on the MGH study, Dr. Mike Filbin, was recently published in Drug Target Review – see the article here
Large epidemiological study of association of plasma ACE2 levels with CVD risk
A study of more than 10,000 subjects from a highly diverse cohort from 5 continents just published in The Lancet has found a clear association of plasma levels of the SARS-CoV-2 virus cellular receptor, ACE2, with risk of major cardiovascular events – link
Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome in Children with COVID-19
Petter Brodin’s group from Karolinska Institute in Stockholm have taken a systems-level examination of the immune responses in children infected with SARS-CoV-2 who develop the rare Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome in Children (MIS-C). In a paper published in Cell, they show how this condition differs from acute COVID-19 in adults, and exhibits important similarities and differences to children with the autoimmune vasculitis condition, Kawasaki disease – link
Immune response in mild versus severe COVID-19 infections
In a study published in Science, a combination of mass cytometry, transcriptomics, and Olink plasma proteomics has revealed complex dynamics between local and systemic immune responses, as well as identifying potential new protein targets for COVID-19 therapy – link
Systems-level immunomonitoring of severe COVID-19
A study by Petter Brodin’s group at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm has used a longitudinal, systems-level approach to characterize immune responses at both the cellular and protein level in severe COVID-19, and during the transition from acute disease to the recovery phase – link
Proteins identifying new immune pathways & predicting the level of disease severity
Researchers from the Radboud UMC in the Netherlands have published a preprint from a study where they used Olink to investigate inflammatory and other biomarkers of COVID-19 pathophysiology – link
ACE2 – protein of the moment
Two recent studies have looked at ACE2 expression in non-COVID-19 subjects, with findings that may throw more light on the significance of circulating levels of this membrane-bound receptor for SARS-CoV-2. – link
COVID-19 Technology Access Framework
Through a collaboration with the Broad Institute, Olink has been acknowledged as a key technology in an initiative to ensure that COVID-19 research findings and data are shared rapidly and openly. We are proud that our platform will be used to help understand and overcome COVID-19 as quickly as possible – link
ACE-inhibitor treatment of hypertension for COVID-19 patients
Olink has been used in an important study looking at the SARS-CoV-2 cellular receptor ACE2. The authors also found genetic data to validate the Olink assay’s targeting of ACE2, which is important data for future studies – link

READ MORE about all the latest news.

Olink biomarker assays for COVID-19 research

Our library of 1161 high-quality protein assays available as fourteen 92-plex panels is ideally suitable for targeted biomarker discovery, with a mix of well-established and exploratory proteins for a broad range of diseases and biological functions. Proteins of particular relevance for COVID-19 research (cytokines, chemokines, and proteins with known links to viral infections and acute respiratory conditions, etc) are listed in the Excel file below (short name, Uniprot ID, and Olink panel(s) in which the assays are available).

Download the Excel file