According to a preclinical study conducted by researchers at Weill Cornell Medicine and Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, an FDA-approved drug called disulfiram, that has been in clinical use for more than 70 years, may safeguard against lung injury and the risk of blood clots in severe COVID-19 and other illnesses that cause immune-mediated lung damage. In two different models of immune-mediated lung damage, the drug disulfiram safeguarded rodents from lung injury after infection with SARS-CoV-2 and a lung failure condition termed transfusion-related acute lung injury (TRALI), which occurs in rare cases following blood transfusion.
Immune cells are known to have a role in both forms of lung damage by forming web-like structures termed neutrophil extracellular traps (NETs). These can capture and kill pathogenic organisms, but they can also injure lung tissue and blood vessels, producing…
