Metabolic Contributions to Multiple Organ Failure in Diabetic Patients With COVID-19

What area of diabetes research does your project cover? What role will this particular project play in preventing, treating and/or curing diabetes? This project will investigate why COVID-19 affects diabetic individuals more severely than those without diabetes. To better understand why this occurs, we will measure hundreds of metabolites and inflammatory proteins in serial samples collected over time from patients hospitalized with COVID-19. Differences between patients with and without a history of diabetes will be used to identify the pathways that produce this effect. Uncovering the underlying mechanisms will allow us to work on developing targeted therapies to improve the care of diabetic patients suffering from COVID-19. If a person with diabetes were to ask you how your project will help them in the future, how would you respond? Currently, patients who are hospitalized with COVID-19 are treated similarly whether or not they have a history of diabetes. Both often require insulin to control high blood sugar levels, however, those with a history of diabetes still tend to do worse. This suggests that factors other than just the ability of patients to regulate their own blood sugar levels are contributing to morbidity and mortality due to COVID-19. This project will work to find the other metabolic abnormalities that drive poor outcomes for individuals with diabetes. This will lead to tailored treatment strategies that will improve the survival rate of diabetic patients. Why is it important for you, personally, to become involved in diabetes research? What role will this award play in your research efforts? As a critical care physician, I routinely care for extremely sick patients, many of which are diabetic. Critically ill patients are always at risk, and this risk is even greater for those with diabetes. Our lack of specialized treatments for diabetic patients is frustrating as a clinician and makes it particularly important for me to conduct diabetes research. In what direction do you see the future of diabetes research going? In addition to improving our ability to improve blood sugar control in diabetic patients, there will be increased attention on fixing the many disorders that are associated with this disease. This will include the immunologic and cardiovascular abnormalities that develop in this population.