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COVID-19 poses a riddle for the immune system

It is unclear why people’s immune response to the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus varies so widely. Tracking patient responses over time sheds light on this issue, and has implications for efforts to predict disease severity.
By
  1. Stanley Perlman

    1. Stanley Perlman is in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology, University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa 52242, USA.

    You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar

A dysregulated immune response, a cytokine storm and cytokine-release syndrome1,2 are some of the terms used to describe the overexuberant defence response that is thought to contribute to disease severity in certain people who become seriously ill with COVID-19. However, a precise definition of this type of immune dysfunction remains elusive.Writing inNature, Lucaset al.3 fill in some gaps in our knowledge.

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Nature584, 345-346 (2020)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-020-02379-1

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