Severe COVID-19 infection is associated with aberrant cytokine production by infected lung epithelial cells rather than by systemic immune dysfunction

Researchers at the University of Chicago used their Laminar Wash HT2000 system to safely prepare peripheral immune cells from COVID-19 patients with moderate and severe disease for flow cytometry in a biosafety cabinet. This preprint manuscript in a Nature family journal reveals how increased IL-6 and CCL2 in patients with severe disease is likely derived not from circulating PBMCs but virus-infected epithelial lung tissue