As the COVID-19 pandemic rages on , people from all walk of biography are being exhibit to the virus . Yet , even with the wealth of knowledge at our disposal , scientist still can not figure out the answer to the favorable interrogation : why do some people get fatally ill from COVID-19 , and others do n’t even clear they have it ?
A large machine - learning project called Blue Brain believes they have the answer , and it consist within our blood line glucose story .
Using machine - get word good example to scour through swathes of COVID-19 enquiry document , Blue Brain canvas 240,000 article and uncover that glucose levels are the undivided most referenced biologic variable throughout .
Their finding were release in the journalFrontiers in Public Health .
The enquiry eviscerate on a huge database of approachable COVID-19 research pieces , call theCOVID-19 Open Research Database(CORD-19 ) . With all the research available to scientist , those behind CORD-19 plant a challenge to AI developers to process the interminable datum and generate fresh lines of question into COVID-19 pathogenesis , and that ’s exactly what Blue Brain did .
“ With access to the CORD-19 dataset , Blue Brain quickly assembled an AI tool and targeted it to assay and recover out why some get sick and others not . Is it enough to just say that quondam people are more vulnerable ? We must find out why . Why do some apparently salubrious people die from COVID-19 ? Why do so many people conk in the ICU ? To respond these questions , we directed our AI to trace every step of the viral infection from the minute the virus enters the lungs until the time when the computer virus damp out of the cells in the lung and spreads throughout the eubstance to infect the organs , ” say Professor Henry Markram , corresponding generator of the paper , in astatement .
“ We also built the virus at an atomistic level and develop a computational model of the infection so we could hear to try out what was come out of the literature . I think we did find the most likely reasonableness why some people get fed up than others . ”
The researchers strongly consider that elevated glucose story are the most likely candidate for gamy disease severity , and so they tested it on infection model . Through this , they detect that in high spirits glucose level leave the idealistic conditions for the virus to bypass the initial Department of Defense of the body , in which the computer virus get in the respiratory system of rules and battle the resistant system in the lung . If it can win and gain access to the alveolar cells , it can start replicating speedily and make far more damage than if it settle at the first hurdle .
Elevated glucose levels were implicate in a wide raiment of ways that help the computer virus take in entry to the lung cells , alongside almost all the other phase of infection . high glucose resulted in the destruction of antiviral defenses in the lungs , while it also downregulates the resistant system and make a cytokine storm , which swamp the infection situation with immune cells . Once past these initial defenses , glucose even facilitates the accounting entry of SARS - CoV-2 into cell via the ACE2 sense organ , and results in far more serious disease , admit multi - organ nonstarter .
While not needs proven , the article illuminates the huge effect high glucose grade in the physical structure may play during the pandemic and the possibility of using it as a biomarker for disease severity . Alongside the grounds against glucose , it also play up a muscular approach to reviewing not just COVID-19 literature , but other biological topics too , which the research worker desire to further rarify to specify human engagement .
