Recent studies suggest that more than half of people with COVID-19 will continue to experience symptoms several weeks after infection. This condition, called post-acute COVID-19 syndrome (PACS), or long COVID, may involve fatigue, shortness of breath and muscle weakness. 

Drs. Juthaporn Cowan and Angela Crawley hope to improve our understanding of this condition and work towards the development of new approaches for diagnosis and treatment, thanks to a $48,000 Translational Research Grant from the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute, the Department of Medicine and the Division of Infectious Diseases. 

The new funding will allow them to conduct detailed studies on immune cells from COVID-19 survivors. They already have clinical data and biological samples (such as sera, plasma and immune cells) thanks to a previous grant from The Ottawa Hospital Foundation’s COVID-19 Emergency Response Fund. Now, they will be able to add more samples and investigate and compare immune exhaustion, tolerance and metabolism between groups of patients with and without PACS. 

Collaborators: Vicente Corrales-Medina, Sonia Poenaru. 

Core Resources: Ottawa Methods Centre, Clinical Investigation Unit

The Ottawa Hospital is a leading academic health, research and learning hospital proudly affiliated with the University of Ottawa and supported by The Ottawa Hospital Foundation. 

Media Contact 
Jenn Ganton
613-614-5253
jganton@ohri.ca