Ruminations: Searching Out the Cause and Function of Long COVID

"[LCRI -- Long COVID Research Initiative -- was born after several patient advocates with Long Covid and a professional background in technology startups approached Proal early this year]: They were like, 'We want to get better, we want to get better soon'."
"The first thing you need to understand in long COVID is if patients still have the virus in them or not."
"We really think there are tangible outcome measures [that will make assessing therapies more straightforward. These could include certain immune signatures or other measures in blood. A working group is considering which drugs or supplements might be tested first]."
"[The first $15 million is committed for basic research and will be spread among participating scientists to focus on one key issue: whether SARS-CoV-2 persists in Long Covid patients and drives their symptoms. That is] the trend we see the most evidence for."
Microbiologist Amy Proal, Washington state–based nonprofit PolyBio Research Foundation

A patient suffering from Long COVID is examined in the post-coronavirus disease (COVID-19) clinic of Ichilov Hospital in Tel Aviv, Israel, February 21, 2022. REUTERS/Amir Cohen/File Photo

A new coalition of scientists from academic centres of excellent have decided to work together for a search answering the question relating to the root cause of Long COVID. To determine first, whether the theory is correct, that fragments of the coronavirus persist in the tissues of some people long after their 'recovery' from a SARS-CoV-2 infection. Only to discover their 'recovery' is incomplete, that symptoms of COVID remain long after the virus is assumed to have left their bodily tissues.

Known as the Long Covid Research Initiative, the effort looks toward streamline research to move quickly to clinical trials of potential treatments as the study progresses. The sharing of diverse scientific skill sets amid researchers is envisioned as a potential for the scientists to reveal the as-yet-hidden details of the disease in hopes of using what they uncover to design evidence-based trials.

A syndrome that can last for many months, Long COVID is a complex and to the present mysterious disabling condition. Many of its sufferers have been left unable to work, months following an initial COVID infection. The condition is recognized as impacting close to one in five U.S. adults who have been infected with COVID, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Infection.

An initial backing of $15 million raised by private investment from Balvi, a scientific investment fund formed by Vitalik Buterin, co-founder of the block-chain platform Ethereum has inaugurated the enterprise. At its peak, a total of $100 million invested in the research is anticipated. Scientists from Harvard, Stanford, the University of California, San Francisco, Yale and the J.Craig Venter Institute are among those included in the joint research group.

Dr. Amy Proal of the non-profit PolyBio Reserch Foundation, who is an expert in infection-associated chronic disease, is set to act as chief scientific officer of the emerging initiative. No proven treatments for Long COVID exist at the present time. Over 150 million people are estimated worldwide to be affected by Long COVID.

Dr. Proal speaks of a growing body of evidence that human tissues continue to host vestiges of the virus, provoking a response from the immune system which, if so, may go far in explaining the large numbers of symptoms -- up to 200 -- associated with COVID, which includes pain, fever, headaches, cognitive impairment, shortage of breath and exhaustion, following modest outputs of activity.

Advanced imaging and gene-sequencing techniques will be used by the researchers in search of evidence of the virus remaining in tissues, going on from there, to analyze affects on the immune system.