Share This The FINANCIAL -- Researchers at Harvard-affiliated Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) have identified the protein “signature” of severe COVID-19, which they describe in a new study published in Cell Reports Medicine. “We were interested in asking whether we could identify mechanisms that might be contributing to death in COVID-19,” says MGH infectious disease expert Marcia Goldberg, who studies interactions between microbial pathogens and their hosts, and is senior author of the study. “In other words, why do some patients die from this disease, while others — who appear to be just as ill — survive?” According to Harvard University, in March 2020, when the first patients with symptoms of COVID-19 began arriving at MGH’s emergency department (ED), Goldberg was contacted by her colleague, Michael Filbin, an attending physician and director of Clinical Research at MGH’s ED, and lead author of the study. Filbin and Goldberg had earlier begun collaborating with MGH immunologist Nir Hacohen to develop methods for studying human immune responses to infections, which they had applied to the condition known as bacterial sepsis. The three agreed to tackle this new problem with the goal of understanding how the human immune system responds to SARS-CoV-2, the novel pathogen that causes COVID-19.