Researchers have identified a gene associated with whether patients hospitalized with respiratory viral infections recover rapidly or face life-threatening complications. The gene has the potential to be used as a diagnostic tool or biomarker, which could help triage patients suffering from severe respiratory infections. Having such a biomarker would help clinicians in their early risk assessments to manage their intervention strategies.

Armed with $55 million in series A funds and a U.S. government contract, Cambridge, Mass.-based Red Queen Therapeutics Inc. launched operations this week, with plans to advance its novel stapled lipopeptide platform, which creates new antiviral therapies that do not rely on the immune system to work.

Muscle fatigue associated with brain inflammation could be prevented by modulating certain cytokines. Researchers at Washington University in St. Louis (WUSTL) have studied inflammation in the CNS in infection models of Escherichia coli, SARS-CoV-2 and amyloid-β toxicity, unveiling its impact on motor function, the role of IL-6 in this process and how to mitigate it in chronic disease.

Severe COVID-19 causes a complex lung injury implicating dysregulated immune responses, endothelial dysfunction and coagulopathy, consistent with acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS).

New research has pinpointed gene signatures that determine what immune responses will be activated in the development of sepsis, pointing to novel targets and opening the way for the stratification of clinical trials and for patients to be treated on the basis of their immune response, rather than their symptoms.