ULB - Royal Academy of Medicine of Belgium
" The project aims at understanding why men are more affected than women. Compelling evidences indicate sex-bias in SARS-CoV2 with male representing the majority of severe cases requiring intensive care. Excessive inflammatory symptoms attributed mainly to cytokine storm is the hall-mark of disease progress. We ask whether differences in genetic fitness between male and female patients could contribute to sex-bias and we focus, in particular, on potential role of microRNAs in fine tuning the type and magnitude of the inflammatory response "
Funding: Current application to FNRS IRIS research
Publication References: - Chamekh M, M Deny, M Romano, et al. Differential Susceptibility to Infectious Respiratory Diseases between Males and Females Linked to Sex-Specific Innate Immune Inflammatory Response. Front Immunol. 2017; 8: 1806. - Casimir, G. J., Lefèvre, N., Corazza, F et al. J. Sex and inflammation in respiratory diseases : a clinical viewpoint. Biol Sex Differ. 2013;4:1–9. - Lefèvre N, Corazza F, Valsamis J, et al. The Number of X Chromosomes Influences Inflammatory Cytokine Production Following Toll-Like Receptor Stimulation. Front Immunol. 2019 9;10:1052. Casimir GJ, Mulier S, Hanssens L, et al. Gender differences in inflammatory markers in children. Shock. 2010;33(3):258-62.
Contact: Inflammation Unit, Laboratory of Pediatric Research, Faculty of Medicine, ULB Queen Elisabeth Medical Foundation Building V, Avenue Jean Joseph Crocq, 1-3, 1020 Bruxelles Tel: 02 477 23 29/25 80