U of T researchers unveil new preclinical insights into why males are more likely to have severe COVID-19

A new study from a team of Emerging and Pandemic Infections Consortium (EPIC) members has uncovered the biological reasons underlying sex differences in COVID-19 outcomes and is offering a promising new strategy to prevent illness.

Early on during the pandemic, clinicians quickly noticed that males were more likely than females to be hospitalized or admitted to the ICU or to die from COVID-19 despite having similar infection rates. This pattern held true across all age groups and in countries around the world.

“COVID-19 severity and mortality are much higher in males than in females, but the reasons for this remain poorly understood,” says Haibo Zhang, senior author of the study and a professor of anesthesiology and pain medicine, critical care medicine and physiology at the University of Toronto’s Temerty Faculty of Medicine.

“That was the driving force for our work.”

The research, conducted in mice and published in the journal iScience, points to the ACE2 protein as a key contributor to differences in COVID-19 outcomes between males and females.

This summary was taken from a piece written by Betty Zou and posted to UofT News. Read the complete article.