A leap towards personalised therapy of acute lung injury

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), an infectious disease caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), was first identified in December 2019 in Wuhan, China. Since then, it has spread globally, resulting in the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, causing more than 580 million documented cases. While most of these cases are characterised by a mild course of disease, a considerable percentage of SARS-CoV-2 infections evoke severe lung involvement, and ultimately lead to acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS). The latter has been causative for most of the >6 million documented deaths between December 2019 and September 2022. Despite the availability of effective vaccines and antivirals, COVID-19 ARDS will thus keep on challenging healthcare workers around the globe. Adopting a personalised therapy for patients with acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) may improve outcomes