Dr Cashman was onto the problem decade ago EDMONTON (CityNews) Researchers at the University of Alberta may have found a new piece of the puzzle to fully understand COVID-19 — how a protein may be deregulating the immune system and leading to serious long-term conditions or death. The new study shows COVID-19 patients have high levels of a protein called galectin-9 in their blood plasma. Researchers have also found a link between those elevated levels of galectin-9 and the occurrence of “cytokine storms” within the patient’s body.
A cytokine storm is when cytokine is produced very quickly and released in large quantity, which causes severe inflammation, damages organs and tissue and can lead to death.