Researchers from Weill Cornell Medicine have used a cutting-edge model system to uncover the mechanism by which SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, induces new cases of diabetes, and worsens complications in people who already have it. The team found that viral exposure activates immune cells that in turn destroy beta cells, the pancreatic cells that produce insulin. The study is published in Cell Stem Cell .
"There has long been a hypothesis in the field that certain viral infections may trigger type 1 diabetes," said co-corresponding author Shuibing Chen, director of the Center for Genomic Health, the Kilts Family Professor of Surgery and a member of the Hartman Institute for Therapeutic Organ Regeneration at Weill Cornell Medicine. "But we were able to show how this happens in the context of COVID-19 infection." "When someone has severe COVID-19, of course the first priority is to treat the life-threatening symptoms," said co-corresponding author Dr.
Robert Schwartz, an associate professor of medicine at Weill Cornell Medicine and a gastroenterologist and hepatologist at NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center. "But moving forward, there may be a way to develop clinical therapeutics that help avoid later injury to organs like the pancreas." Dr.
Liuliu Yang and Dr. Yuling Han, who were postdoctoral fellows in the Department of Surgery at the time of the study, and Dr. Tuo Zhang, an instructor in microbiology and immunology at Weill Cornell Medicine, were c.