Pandemic Prepared
Scientists, like English teachers, always ask “What?” then “Why?” First observe a pattern of metaphors in a novel, of a phenomenon in nature then investigate the reason for it. Months into the coronavirus pandemic, the majority of published research was still answering “what” questions: What age is at greatest risk of hospitalization? What sex is most likely to recover? But when it came to
why these differences were observed and how to use that information to develop better treatments the Iwasaki lab at the Yale School of Medicine was uniquely poised to find answers. Their latest research revealed sex differences in the immune response that might explain differences in COVID-19 disease progression.