This time, with regard to COVID-19. I swear, sometimes it’s just like St. Jude is showing off:
Scientists at St. Jude may have figured out how COVID-19 kills, and more importantly, how to stop it.
[snip]
The team focused on cytokines, small proteins released in the body in response to inflammation. They concentrated on the most elevated cytokines in COVID-19 patients and found one duo that stood out.
Turns out, the drugs to treat these cytokine reactions, or cytokine storms, already exist.
When tried on mice, the medication protected them from COVID-19 death and from sepsis, a deadly infection of the blood.
Via Hot Air Headlines. More seriously: excellent news, but it’s early days yet and medicine is full of promising developments that never panned out. This is hopeful, nothing more. But even if it doesn’t immediately pan out it’s still very, very promising – and hope is an underrated emotion in our modern, cynical age.
Read something a week or two ago that suggested that this might not be as useful as it seems. A study found that many of the worst patients have elevated levels of cytokines, and for these patients the above information might prove useful. However, other patients (iirc slightly over half) who are in similarly bad shape do *not* have the elevated cytokine levels.
The researchers weren’t sure what could account for the very dramatic difference in cytokine levels.