Leopoldo Nicolas Segal, MD

Some critically ill patients infected with SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, require mechanical ventilation. We need to better understand which of these patients will benefit from different treatments. To find treatable traits among these most severely ill patients, we need to make comparisons among patients with similar severity. We have built a repository of paired lower airway and blood samples from critically ill COVID-19 patients. We will evaluate the changes at different time points in these samples looking at factors such as viral load, secondary infections and clinical outcome in these patients. Identifying factors associated with poor clinical outcome among critically ill COVID-19 patients will be key for the development of clinically useful biomarkers and/or novel therapeutic targets.

Update:
We are using lower airway samples from critically ill COVID-19 patients to uncover the novel microbiome (the collection of bacteria, viruses and fungi that live on and inside the human body) and immune response signatures that can explain poor prognosis. We are continuing to analyze changes occurring with various treatments. It is critical to identify novel traits amenable for personalized approach among patients suffering from the most severe forms of this disease.