{"id":472037,"date":"2026-05-06T23:40:19","date_gmt":"2026-05-06T23:40:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/472037\/"},"modified":"2026-05-06T23:40:19","modified_gmt":"2026-05-06T23:40:19","slug":"meet-the-researcher-on-a-mission-to-find-a-cure-for-long-covid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/472037\/","title":{"rendered":"Meet the Researcher on a Mission to Find a Cure for Long COVID"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Estimated7 min read\"health<\/a><\/p>\n

This piece is part of our first-annual Health Care Heroes series, where we spotlight people doing amazing things in the health care and medical fields. Read the rest of the stories here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

THE WORLD LOOKS <\/strong>starkly different than it did six years ago. You rarely see people wearing a face mask on planes. Nobody is spacing out six feet apart indoors. People aren\u2019t panic buying toilet paper. For many, the pandemic is over. But for the millions of people living with long COVID, the pandemic is still very much in their daily consciousness. They continue to battle the lingering effects of the virus\u2014and the skeptics who question whether the often-debilitating condition even exists.<\/p>\n

Michael Peluso, MD, of the University of California, San Francisco, has seen a version of this before. As an infectious disease doctor and longtime HIV researcher, Dr. Peluso remembers the skepticism and misinformation around the HIV virus. Like HIV, COVID-19 can also have long-term effects on the immune system. So it felt natural for him to begin incorporating long COVID research into his work. \u201cEverybody was hyper-focused on the acute phase of COVID,\u201d he remembers. \u201cWho is going to get COVID? Who is going to end up in the hospital? Who’s going to end up in the ICU? But there was very little focus at that time on what might happen to people after they had COVID.\u201d<\/p>\n

In April 2020, Dr. Peluso launched the Long-term Impact of Infection with Novel Coronavirus (LIINC) research program, alongside a multidisciplinary team, to better understand the biological, immunological, and clinical changes in people with long COVID. Unlike other long COVID research programs, LIINC also has a tissue bank where researchers collect and study tissue samples from these \u201clong-haulers.\u201d This helps scientists make more informed decisions on how to set up their clinical trials in the hopes of discovering effective treatments. So far, Dr. Peluso and his team have enrolled more than 1,800 people, collected over 100,000 biospecimens, and shared over 20,000 of those biospecimens across dozens of research labs also studying long COVID.<\/p>\n

Men\u2019s Health chatted with Dr. Peluso\u2014one of the first to investigate long COVID and who\u2019s very much been in the trenches with long-haulers\u2014to learn more about the tissue bank, the most exciting findings thus far, and whether he thinks we\u2019ll ever have a cure for long COVID.<\/p>\n

Men\u2019s Health: Can you start off by telling us about the long COVID research program you currently manage?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Michael Peluso:<\/strong> We got approval in March of 2020 and launched it in April 2020 to understand what would happen to people in the post-acute phase outside of the acute illness. Within a couple weeks of opening, we began to get outreach from people in San Francisco who had COVID in March and April and were still not feeling back to normal after a few weeks. We started seeing that this might be something that’s really clinically important. So we started bringing in people who had persistent symptoms or other issues that they developed shortly after they had COVID. This really became the major focus of our program, and has remained the major focus now for six years.<\/p>\n

MH: What exactly is the long COVID tissue bank?<\/strong><\/p>\n

MP: <\/strong>There are two components of the tissue bank. The first component is that [study participants] can opt in to various tissue biopsies which are performed here at our site [in California]. We do gut biopsies, lymph node biopsies, lumbar punctures for spinal fluid collection, bone marrow biopsies, and endometrial biopsies. These are performed in living, breathing people with long COVID for research. Then we study those specimens in the research laboratory to understand, biologically, what’s happening in the tissues.<\/p>\n

The second component is one people often ask about and it’s something that we are building towards. We eventually want to be able to receive tissues from people all across the country who are getting regular clinical procedures done so that we can use them for research on long COVID. That component is still being developed. We are hoping it will launch this year, but we\u2019re still seeking the funding we will need to get it off the ground.<\/p>\n

\"MichaelNoah Berger\/UCSF<\/p>\n

Dr. Peluso meets with colleagues on UCSF\u2019s Long-term Impact of Infection with Novel Coronavirus (LIINC) project in 2024.<\/p>\n

MH: Has there been any interesting or exciting findings thus far?<\/strong><\/p>\n

MP: <\/strong>One of the surprising things [we learned] was how subtle the differences are in terms of blood measurements. Some of these people were really disabled (needing to be in a wheelchair, for example). Some lost their jobs because their cognitive dysfunction was so bad. But when we did studies on their blood, it wasn’t wildly abnormal. Because of that, we began to focus more on what was going on in various tissues and organs. Our hypothesis was that it appears to be a tissue-based disease process and this seems to be the case. We are now trying hard to really understand all of the components of that and eventually figure out how to reverse [the changes].<\/p>\n

MH: Based on your findings thus far, do you believe HIV and long COVID are similar in terms of how the viruses attack the body?<\/strong><\/p>\n

MP: <\/strong>Both of these viruses\u2014even though they are fundamentally different in terms of their life cycle and how they work\u2014can cause perturbations in the immune system. Our work in HIV is really about understanding how and why HIV persists in a person’s body, and trying to address that fundamental issue. We’ve applied that same philosophy and set of tools to our long COVID program.<\/p>\n

One of the things conceptually we’re really interested in is whether components of SARS-Cov-2 [the formal name of the virus that causes COVID] can persist in a person’s body. The second important link for us is our approach to clinical trials in long COVID. This has really been informed by the types of clinical trials that we’ve done in HIV.<\/p>\n

The types of trials that we do are framed around identifying what is the biological pathway that we think is the root cause of the disease and then really trying to aggressively target that from a variety of different angles to figure out whether that pathway can be altered in the first place. If it can, how does that affect people’s health? They\u2019re extremely intense. The other type of clinical trials often involve treatments that are using repurposed drugs<\/a> off the shelf and are lighter touch. Many of our trials that use drugs are in earlier stages of development and are generally investigational only.<\/p>\n

MH: From your point of view, what are the biggest misconceptions about long COVID?<\/strong><\/p>\n

MP:<\/strong> There are still people who are skeptical that long COVID is real. Though the number of those people has really decreased over time in part due to the science that has been done by us and many others who are engaged in this work. Another common misconception is that this is a mental health issue or caused by depression or anxiety. We don’t think that’s the case. There’s a lot of work that has been done to show biologically what might be driving this and causing the condition. The third misconception is that people don’t get long COVID anymore. The risk of getting long COVID from an infection in 2020 or 2021 was much higher than it is now, but we still see plenty of people who develop long COVID after their second, third, fourth, fifth, episode of COVID.<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cWe’ve made a lot of progress, and the field is continuing to expand. We\u2019ve been involved with eight long COVID clinical trials at this point with more coming down the pipeline.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n

MH: Last year we <\/strong>published a piece<\/strong><\/a> about two men\u2014a doctor and a biohacker\u2014who are bonded by their quest to treat their long COVID. What are your thoughts on all of these people who are having to search for treatments on their own?<\/strong><\/p>\n

MP:<\/strong> The most important thing a person with long COVID can do is try to find a clinician who has some experience or is willing to develop experience with the disease. Someone who is there to support them and help them figure out how to best manage their symptoms. So much of the progress that has been made in this field is because of people who have tried various things and have talked about what their experience has been. That has helped us find leads for what needs to be developed and studied in clinical trials. Our work is always informed by the lived experience of people with the condition.<\/p>\n

The other thing I will say is problematic in this field clinically is that there’s a lot of unproven treatments that are being utilized. If someone is pursuing something like that, it\u2019s important that they’re doing so safely with medical supervision. But the goal for the field overall is to transition from where we are now\u2014a pretty limited armamentarium of treatments that can be used to manage or blunt symptoms\u2014to the point where we can actually identify the fundamental biological cause and cure it. That’s really what our group is focused on.<\/p>\n

MH: Do you think we\u2019ll ever have a cure for long COVID?<\/strong><\/p>\n

MP:<\/strong> Yes. I wouldn’t be working on this if I didn’t think that we were going to eventually get to the endgame of having a cure for long COVID. Now I don’t think that we’re going to have a single cure. I think we’ll probably have a set of diagnostic tests to figure out what approach is most likely to work for a specific individual. Then we\u2019ll have a series of treatments or cures based on those diagnoses.<\/p>\n

MH: What gives you hope about the future of long COVID research?<\/strong><\/p>\n

MP: <\/strong>The fact that we’re having this conversation in 2026 gives me hope. In the beginning, there was so much skepticism of this disease and so many doubters that it could be studied systematically and with rigor. That’s been disproven now. We’ve made a lot of progress, and the field is continuing to expand. We\u2019ve been involved with eight long COVID clinical trials at this point with more coming down the pipeline. That’s a really encouraging sign. I wake up excited every day. I don’t know what’s going to happen, but I’m really encouraged by what we have seen over the last couple years.<\/p>\n

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re interested in getting involved with the tissue bank or signing up for a long COVID clinical trial, head over to the LIINC study’s website<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\"Graphic<\/p>\n

Describe your job in three words.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Solving hard problems.<\/p>\n

Favorite medical show to watch?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Scrubs.<\/p>\n

Best career advice you\u2019ve ever received?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Don\u2019t be afraid to follow an unexpected path forward.<\/p>\n

Describe the future of AI in health care in three words.<\/strong><\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know if I can get it down to three, but in six words: It\u2019s not the answer for everything.<\/p>\n

\"Headshot<\/p>\n

Jocelyn Solis-Moreira, MS is the associate health & fitness for Men’s Health and has previously written for CNN, Scientific American, Popular Science, and National Geographic before joining the brand. When she’s not working, she’s doing circus arts or working towards the perfect pull-up.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"7 min read This piece is part of our first-annual Health Care Heroes series, where we spotlight people…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":472038,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[275],"tags":[1926,207134,13195,18,135,475,474,19,17,201411,590,201866,207133],"class_list":{"0":"post-472037","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-healthcare","8":"tag-content-type-feature","9":"tag-contentid-41276dfc-78a5-464c-9a4c-9b3f910c1ed6","10":"tag-displaytype-long-form-article","11":"tag-eire","12":"tag-health","13":"tag-health-care","14":"tag-healthcare","15":"tag-ie","16":"tag-ireland","17":"tag-issyndicated-false","18":"tag-locale-us","19":"tag-read_time-9","20":"tag-shorttitle-the-researcher-on-a-mission-to-cure-long-covid"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116530278209818675","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/472037","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=472037"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/472037\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/472038"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=472037"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=472037"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=472037"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}