Unicorn Sniper

“Finding an accepted Long COVID biomarker will be complicated. This blood test could give us answers.” @mileswgriffis @thesicktimes Last year, immunologist Johan Van Weyenbergh published a study in The Lancet: Microbe that identified a potential blood-based biomarker for Long COVID with 94% sensitivity. Van Weyenbergh’s team discovered SARS-CoV-2 RNA transcripts in the blood cells of people with Long COVID. They also found a specific type of RNA, called ORF1ab RNA, which suggested there could also be ongoing viral replication of SARS-C0V-2 in people with the disease. “I can see a number of ways where this [potential biomarker] might be useful and warrants further investigation,” said Annie Antar, an assistant professor of medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine who researches HIV and Long COVID.  “A more full characterization of the biomarker will be really important,” said Antar, who is not affiliated with Van Weyenbergh’s research. For a biomarker to be widely accepted, it must undergo an extensive process in which scientists validate their findings with larger groups of patients. Then, other scientists replicate those results in their own independent cohorts. Even when validated through this process, biomarkers can exclude some people who may have a disease. For example, if the biomarker from Van Weyenbergh’s study continues to have 94% sensitivity, that means it will correctly identify Long COVID in 94% of people with the disease — but will miss the other 6%. Despite Van Weyenbergh’s promising research, his team ran out of funding to validate the finding in a larger cohort last fall. His encouraging study could lead to a biomarker for a disabling disease affecting over 400 million people globally, but he couldn’t find support from European governments, many of which have notoriously underfunded research into Long COVID.  “A lot of long haulers are going overlooked or being misdiagnosed because we don’t have tests [for Long COVID],” said Devin Russell, the CEO of Long COVID Foundation. When Russell came across Van Weyenbergh’s study last year, he knew it was something he wanted his non-profit to support. Together with activist group Long COVID Action Project (@LongCovidAP), they raised over $34,000, primarily from people with the disease. Van Weyenbergh’s research also caught the attention of the leading Long COVID research group the Polybio Research Foundation, which he said further supported his research with a $159,000 grant.* Now, Van Weyenbergh is working with his team at the Rega Institute for Medical Research in Leuva, Belgium on confirming their original findings.  “To get a biomarker, we have to validate it in [an] independent cohort,” he said. — More in the link below ⬇️ —

@gfc4 curious to hear what @markminervini has to say, i would assume he is one of those

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