A new paper in Nature Communications co-authored by Dr. Brent Stockwell illuminates the links between a type of cell death known as ferroptosis and COVID19 lung disease.As Columbia News reports:
"In some severe cases of COVID-19, the lungs undergo extreme damage, resulting in a range of life-threatening conditions like pneumonia, inflammation, and acute respiratory distress syndrome. The root cause of those wide-ranging reactions in the lungs has until now remained unclear.
A new study by researchers at Columbia and the Columbia University Irving Medical Center sheds light on this mystery. The study found that ferroptosis, a form of cell death first named and identified at Columbia in 2012, is the major cell death mechanism that underlies COVID-19 lung disease. The finding indicates that deliberately halting ferroptosis with therapeutic drug candidates could improve COVID-19 outcomes."
Read the full Columbia News article about this study and its implications here.
