Battling COVID-19: A new model of cytokine release syndrome

Under certain circumstances in patients, the human immune system can spin out of control and become highly toxic, resulting in cytokine release syndrome (CRS).

CRS has been notoriously difficult to study, however, new data indicates that many aspects of human CRS can be modeled in immunodeficient NSG mice engrafted with human peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs). This model provides hope that new immuno-modulatory therapies can be safely developed and tested before clinical trials.