WSU researchers look to head off COVID-19’s deadly pneumonia

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A discovery by a Washington State University researcher may hold the key to preventing the severe, deadly pneumonia seen with COVID-19.

For more than a decade, Professor Santanu Bose, a viral infection researcher in WSU’s Department of Veterinary Microbiology and Pathology and his team, have worked to learn why some viral infections of the respiratory tract are so deadly.

Bose’s patented discovery involves a protein, A9, which signals an overblown inflammatory reaction in the airways that fills the lungs with fluid, destroys airway tissues, and results in fatalities.

“Patients often display a full spectrum of individual responses to respiratory infections, from mild to full-blown inflammatory storms,” Katrina Mealey said.   Professor Mealey is the WSU veterinary college’s associate dean for research and a pharmacologist and veterinarian familiar with treating animals with respiratory infections.  “A human therapeutic capable of calming the inflammatory storm in the lungs could be a game-changer,” she said.

Last week, Bose’s technology, patented as, “Methods of treating inflammation associated airway disease and viral infections,” was licensed to a Canadian Biotech company, InflammatorRx Inc., for further pre-clinical development intended as a precursor to human clinical trials with COVID-19 patients.

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