Award Details:
Award Type: covid-19-response
Award #: CR-001
Proposal Title: Targeting Aberrant Immune Responses in Patients with Severe COVID-19
PI(s): G. R. Scott Budinger (NU), Jing Liu (UIC), and Gokhan Mutlu (UChicago)
Award Amount: $500,000.00
Application Cycle: Summer 2020
Award Start Date: September 1, 2020
Award End Date: August 31, 2022
Abstract:
The public health and societal impacts of COVID-19 are all attributable to patients with severe disease. We have collected samples from the lungs of 86 patients with severe COVID-19 and 252 patients with severe pneumonia from other causes (likely the world’s largest) and autopsy tissue from 36 Chicagoans who died from or underwent lung transplant for COVID-19. Our detailed genomic analysis of these samples suggests why COVID-19 is more severe in some, with therapeutic implications. We will test this in human lung tissues infected with SARS-CoV-2 at Argonne labs and will credential a therapy to promote lung healing after COVID- 19.