Professor Akiko Iwasaki and the Yale School of Medicine research on Long Covid and post infection syndromes

The Latest on Long Covid Research with Dr. Iwasaki
Hosted by Body Politic

Mon, April 4, 2022
3:00 PM – 4:00 PM Pacific / 6:00 PM - 7:00 PM Eastern

Register here - https://www.eventbrite.com/e/the-latest-on-long-covid-research-with-dr-iwasaki-tickets-308247335077

Or watch free on the Body Politic youtube channel - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuMpekylMvYax3mCk9Cxw4g

Tweet from https://twitter.com/itsbodypolitic :

 

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Long Covid webinar, November 2022

https://twitter.com/user/status/1590517201987330048

 

Bumping this...starts in 20 minutes...

 

I thought this was a good talk and will be on YouTube at some stage soon. Mostly discussed the recent pre-print.

Judging from the thumbs-up type reactions, there also seemed to be a number of vaccine-injured audience members, who clearly appreciated the unpublished data she presented at the end, along with some hypotheses to consider. Interesting to note the 1:1 overlap in symptoms and demographics between LC and "post-vaccination long haul" — is it the same underlying mechanism of a misfired immune response to systemic spike protein, or maybe specifically targeting endothelium or even epithelium?

 

I don’t think she defined LC or mentioned MECFS, but may have missed.

 

She didn't reference ME specifically until the end. I think the idea being that it's more useful to investigate in a tightly defined cohort (proven LC). However by introduction she framed the talk around infection-related chronic illness in general, and in particular had a slide that listed all the named postviral syndromes (eg post-Ebola, post-polio), plus Lyme etc. Conspicuously absent from the list was "ME/CFS", the point (I took) being that these conditions are all ME. At the end she discussed the various collaborations, including PolyBio (MVZ, AP) who were to investigate ME/CFS (not otherwise specified cause) with her team.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jt8K1Q7V7YA

 

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Akiko Iwasaki - 2.5 million euros - Else Kröner Fresenius Prize for Medical Research

Akiko Iwasaki got some money,
https://twitter.com/user/status/1655547454165483520


"--- At a sum of 2.5 million euros, immunologist Professor Akiko Iwasaki from the Yale School of Medicine is being awarded one of the world’s most highly endowed prizes for research in the field of medicine: the Else Kröner Fresenius Prize for Medical Research. EKFS is consequently honoring Iwasaki’s groundbreaking contributions in the area of “Diseases of worldwide significance.” The focal point is formed by Iwasaki’s work on immune responses to viral infections.---"
https://www.ekfs.de/en/current-topi...i-awarded-else-kroner-fresenius-prize-medical

 

Such great news, and nice to see ME mentioned too:

Akiko Iwasaki, Ph.D. and a professor at Yale University, will receive this year’s Else Kröner Fresenius Prize for Medical Research on June 5th, 2023 at the Palmengarten in Frankfurt, Germany. The prize is endowed with 2.5 million euros, and through it the foundation Else Kröner-Fresenius-Stiftung (EKFS) acknowledges Professor Iwasaki’s research work on immune responses to viral infections. The prize also furthers her investigation of post-acute infection syndromes such as long COVID and myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS).

 

Very nice and well-deserved, but I really dislike language like ME being recognized as significant. It absolutely hasn't and we've seen decades of headlines saying the same thing. We are no further 3 years into LC than we've ever been, everything still rests on a tiny number of motivated researchers butting against a completely apathetic, at best, or downright hostile giant healthcare industry. If anything, it's possible that the bar for evidence has been raised even further, pushing us back in absolute terms.

We have to end the damn false hope thing. It just demoralizes more than anything. It just feels like someone mockingly opening the door to our prison cell to tempt us at trying to escape, but it's on a mechanism that leaves no chance of escape. It's mostly just used to torment us by the usual quacks and charlatans.

 

Congratulations, well deserved.

 

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Akiko Iwasaki speaks on BBC- Science in Action

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/w3ct4scs (around 10:00 I believe).


She talks about the recent Keystone Symposium and ongoing findings. A focus seems to be microclots, viral persistence, EBV and some of Nath's findings.

https://twitter.com/user/status/1700175326779674857

 

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Post-Acute Infection Syndromes Will Be the Focus of New YSM Center
https://medicine.yale.edu/news-arti...yndromes-will-be-the-focus-of-new-ysm-center/

Researchers will investigate Long COVID, myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome, and post-treatment Lyme disease at the Center for infection & Immunity
Yale School of Medicine (YSM) officially launched its new Center for Infection & Immunity (CII), established within the Department of Immunobiology, on August 18.

Akiko Iwasaki, PhD


The COVID-19 pandemic and the prevalence of Long COVID have shed light on the urgent need to study post-acute infection syndromes. The mission of the new center will be to provide a greater understanding of the basic science behind infectious diseases, with an emphasis on Long COVID, post-treatment Lyme disease, and myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS). It is the first center of its kind, says its creator Akiko Iwasaki, PhD, YSM’s Sterling Professor of Immunobiology.

“Post-acute infection syndromes have historically been ignored. They’ve been going on for decades—or maybe hundreds of years—but we haven’t been paying attention,” says Iwasaki. “Our center is uniquely positioned to tackle these diseases because of our building expertise from Long COVID and our many collaborations across different disciplines.”

Post-acute infection syndrome refers to chronic diseases that occur after an acute viral, bacterial or parasitic infection. They occur most frequently in middle-aged women. While not new, the syndrome’s prevalence is significantly growing as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, in which as many as 10% of infections have led to Long COVID, leaving individuals with lingering, often debilitating symptoms. Researchers estimate that 75 million people globally are suffering with the disease, and as new infections continue to arise daily, there’s “no end in sight,” says Iwasaki.

“The pandemic gives us perspective to understand how viruses have affected our risk to other diseases and our health as a human population over history,” says Nancy J. Brown, MD, Jean and David W. Wallace Dean of Yale School of Medicine.

Long COVID highlights need for post-acute infection syndrome research
Following the pandemic’s onset, researchers across disciplines at Yale and beyond came together to unravel the mysteries of this new infectious disease. The need for a new center to support this extensive collaboration soon became clear, says Iwasaki. “So we created CII to mediate greater cooperation and promote the sharing of ideas, samples, and data.”

“The center grew within the Iwasaki lab,” says Nicole Darricarrère, PhD, the scientific program director of CII. “So we’re training and incubating within her amazing environment. We’re fortunate to have people from her lab with such expertise.”

New center will study infectious disease pathobiology and prevention
The research through CII will focus on the pathobiology of Long COVID, ME/CFS, and post-treatment Lyme syndrome. Although these post-acute infection syndromes are triggered by different pathogens, because they often share similar symptoms—including fatigue, unrefreshing sleep, dysautonomia, and pain—Iwasaki believes they share similar pathologies. “If we can identify even with one of these diseases what an underlying cause of disease is, then we can apply that knowledge to prevent and treat other kinds of post-acute infection syndromes.”

The other arm of the center will focus on disease prevention. This includes research on different vaccination strategies and universal vaccines for different agents. “Vaccines are really important in preventing these diseases,” says Iwasaki. “So I’m also hopeful that we can develop better preventative mechanisms to go along with our more disease treatment-focused research.”

The center’s members will include the following world-leading experts: Anne Wyllie, PhD, Nathan Grubaugh, PhD, Craig Wilen, MD, PhD, Maudry Laurent-Rolle, MD, PhD, Ellen Foxman, MD, PhD, Ruslan Medzhitov, PhD, Anna Pyle, PhD, Benjamin Goldman-Israelow, MD, PhD, Erol Fikrig, MD, David Martinez, PhD, Albert Ko, MD, Carolina Lucas, PhD, Inci Yildirim, MD, PhD, Albert Shaw, MD, PhD, John Tsang, PhD, Lisa Sanders, MD, Carlos Oliveira, MD, PhD, Charles Dela Cruz, MD, PhD, Justin Belsky, MD, Harlan Krumholz, MD, David van Dijk, PhD, Wade Shulz, MD, PhD, Leying Guan, PhD, and Smita Krishnaswamy, PhD.

 

It buggers this bogged brain as to when and why medicine stopped assuming that when symptoms persist after acute stage, the pathogen was still mucking about somewhere in the patient.

Isn't the way of infections typically acute and treat (if treatable)? Then either the patient's infection resolves, or the infection persists - unless proven otherwise.

Until they can account for privileged sites, it startles me how willing some can be to not seriously pursue tissue testing and the like, including autopsies that exhaustively check for brain infections.

 

Post-Acute Infection. Not a good name. Very specific and ME/CFS is not just Post-acute "Infection". But then again, it is a great term for immunologists.

No immunologist might question why Post-treatment Lyme disease syndrome includes the word "treatment" in its title. It may be the treatment that makes things go wrong, not lyme infection itself.

 

Part of me is appreciative of the implication in "post-acute", although it's effectively muted by "syndrome".

I'm curious, too, what sort of internal political dynamics might appear considering Yale's history in at least one area they'd be looking at. I hope they give Iwasaki free rein.

 

This is pretty good news. Unfortunately no details like staffing or funding that would allow us to estimate how much research they'll be undertaking. Regardless, it's part of a trend of increasing awareness of ME/CFS, long Covid, and similar.