Drugs targeting patients’ immune systems, rather than the virus itself, could be key to recovery from severe cases of the disease, some researchers suggest.

By studying influenza in mice and cells, researchers identify a glucose metabolism pathway critical to the dysregulated immune response that kills many infectious disease patients, including those with COVID-19.

As the first clinical data become available on treating coronavirus patients with the cells, scientists are equivocal about the rationale for the intervention.

Emerging data as well as knowledge from the SARS and MERS coronavirus outbreaks yield some clues as to why SARS-CoV-2 affects some people worse than others.

Researchers have identified the cellular regulators of cytokine storms in influenza, which cause serious illness and death.