Research points to treatment for COVID-19 cytokine storms

A transgenic mouse developed at Cincinnati Children’s to model the deadly childhood immune disease HLH (hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis) may play a key role in saving lives during the COVID-19 virus pandemic. One of the genetically engineered mouse strain’s inventors—Cincinnati Children’s cancer pathologist Gang Huang, Ph.D.— is co-investigator on a small clinical trial that successfully tested a drug used to treat to HLH (ruxolitinib) to dramatically reverse respiratory and multi-system inflammation in severely ill COVID-19 patients. Data from the Phase II clinical study is published in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology.