A City of Hope-led research team found that the same gene that increases the risk for Alzheimer’s disease, ApoE4, can increase the susceptibility to and severity of COVID-19.
At the beginning of the study, the team was interested in SARS-CoV-2’s effects on the brain. Due to the fact that COVID-19 patients often lose their sense of taste and smell, the team theorized that the virus had an underlying neurological effect.
The team first created brain cells in the lab using pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs), which are a kind of stem cell that can become virtually any type of cell.
