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Author Spotlight: Unveiling the Polyfunctionality and Heterogeneity in Immune Responses
Published on: March 8, 2024
Cytokine Storms in Cancer and COVID-19
Casmir Turnquist1, Bríd M Ryan2, Izumi Horikawa2
1University of Oxford Medical School, John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford, UK; Laboratory of Human Carcinogenesis, Center for Cancer Research, National Cancer Institute, Bethesda, MD, USA.
Abstract:
During the COVID-19 pandemic, research on "cytokine storms" has been reinvigorated in the field of infectious disease, but it also has particular relevance to cancer research. Interleukin-6 (IL-6) has emerged as a key component of the immune response to SARS-CoV-2, such that the repurposing of anti-IL-6 therapeutics for COVID-19 is now a major line of investigation, with several ongoing clinical trials. We lay a framework for understanding the role of IL-6 in the context of cancer research and COVID-19 and suggest how lessons learned from cancer research may impact SARS-CoV-2 research and vice versa.
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