Researchers identify protein “signature” of severe COVID-19

Excerpt from the Press Release:

Researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard have identified the protein “signature” of severe COVID-19, which they describe in a new study published in Cell Reports Medicine. “We were interested in asking whether we could identify mechanisms that might be contributing to death in COVID-19,” said MGH infectious disease expert and Broad associate member Marcia Goldberg, who studies interactions between microbial pathogens and their hosts. “In other words, why do some patients die from this disease, while others — who appear to be just as ill — survive?” Goldberg is co-senior author of the study together with MGH Center for Cancer Immunotherapy director and Broad institute member Nir Hacohen. 

In March 2020, when the first patients with symptoms of COVID-19 began arriving at MGH’s emergency department (ED), Goldberg was contacted by her colleague, Michael Filbin, an attending physician and director of clinical research at MGH’s ED, an associate member at the Broad, and co-first author of the study with Arnav Mehta, a postdoctoral fellow at the Broad and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. Filbin and Goldberg had earlier begun collaborating with Hacohen to develop methods for studying human immune responses to infections, which they had applied to the condition known as bacterial sepsis. The three agreed to tackle this new problem with the goal of understanding how the human immune system responds to SARS-CoV-2, the novel pathogen that causes COVID-19.

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