E-Mail Scientists from several hospitals and research centers have shown what happens in individual cells of patients who died of COVID-19. In a study published in Nature, the researchers describe how infected cells from multiple organs exhibited a range of molecular and genomic changes. They also saw signs of multiple, unsuccessful attempts by the lungs to repair themselves in response to respiratory failure, which is the leading cause of death in COVID-19 patients. "You really feel the tragedy of the disease when you see that result," said Aviv Regev, co-senior author of the study and a core institute member at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard when the study began. "The lung tries everything at its disposal, and it still can't fix itself. This was a very emotional study. We are grateful to the patients and families who agreed to donate tissue for COVID-19 research to help advance understanding of this devastating disease."