Washington: Many respiratory infections, such as influenza or COVID-19, cause extreme stress to cells and organs, resulting in acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), which can finally lead to death in the elderly or fragile people.
"Novel therapeutic strategies to address ARDS, instead of fighting the infectious agent, could try to elicit the tolerance of the host organism towards the inflammatory challenge by boosting its natural adaptive stress responses," says Professor Johan Auwerx at EPFL's School of Life Sciences.
