US scientists discover cure for long Covid?
- Minhoo Jeong
- Mar 25, 2025
- 2 min read
Mar 25 2025
Minhoo Jeong
In May 2023, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the end of the COVID-19 global health emergency, but millions of people are still experiencing symptoms such as fatigue, shortness of breath, and pain for years after contracting COVID-19. Long-term sequelae of COVID-19 Long Covid, also known as “post-COVID-19 syndrome,” refers to a range of symptoms that persist long after COVID-19 infection. It is estimated that around 400 million people worldwide have experienced or are currently living with Long Covid. Since the first cases of chronic symptoms were reported in late 2020, scientists have struggled to find the cause of long COVID, but still lack an effective means to treat it.
Because the disease manifests in a variety of symptoms, the cellular and molecular mechanisms underlying it are also highly complex, and identifying the specific mechanisms that cause it is a priority. Identifying the mechanisms and understanding the interactions between different factors will bring us one step closer to developing targeted therapies.
A recent study published in Science identified “lung inflammation” as the primary cause of long COVID, but Dr. Jie Sun, an immunologist and study leader at the University of Virginia in the U.S., conducted further research to analyze the specific causes of long COVID. His team conducted experiments with lung samples from patients with long COVID and mice with the same symptoms. Dr. Sun found reduced levels of peroxisomes, a specific immune cell responsible for tissue healing, in the lung tissue of patients who died of acute COVID-19 and those with long COVID.
Peroxisomes are small organelles inside immune cells that act as detoxification control towers that remove toxic molecules and help damaged tissue heal. The findings show that peroxisomes play an important role in the rapid regeneration of damaged lung tissue, and that SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, causes peroxisome dysfunction, leading to a sequelae called long COVID.
Scientists have been trying to find a treatment that can repair the lung damage caused by COVID-19. Recently, there has been a lot of research and development into therapies to boost peroxisome function.
When the team treated COVID-19-infected mice with a substance called sodium 4-phenylbutyrate (4-PBA), they found that peroxisomes increased and lung scarring decreased. The researchers say this is evidence that it could help treat patients with long-term lung disease caused by long COVID, and could be a promising treatment for long COVID.
