Institute for Systems Biology-led research identifying four factors that can predict if a patient is likely to develop long COVID is a finalist in annual scientific competition modeled after college basketball’s March Madness

One of the most cited scientific papers of 2022 – important research out of the Institute for Systems Biology (ISB) that identified several factors that can predict if a patient is likely to develop long COVID – has been voted into the championship round of STAT Madness.

STAT Madness, the annual bracket-style competition hosted by STAT News and modeled after college basketball’s March Madness, selects 64 important research papers from the previous year, and pits them against each other to determine the “MVP of health and medicine.”

This year, ISB is one of two finalists.

“This is an incredible honor on a couple of levels. The fact that we are in the championship speaks to the importance and reach of our long COVID work,” said ISB President Dr. Jim Heath, whose lab led the collaborative research. “Equally exciting is that ISB, much smaller than the large academic institutions in the competition, was able to move forward each round. We are excited and proud of this accomplishment.”

ISB’s path through 2023 STAT Madness included five successive victories over research from Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, the Department of Veterans Affairs, MIT, the University of Notre Dame, and Albert Einstein Medical School.

The long COVID research was originally published in the journal Cell last March, and was conducted by ISB in collaboration with Providence Swedish, University of Washington, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, Stanford University, and others. Shortly after the work was published, ISB announced its leadership role in the Pacific Northwest consortium of the NIH-funded RECOVER study, which seeks to understand, prevent and treat the causes of long COVID.

The paper’s groundbreaking findings were picked up immediately by The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, PBS NewsHour, and hundreds of news outlets around the world.

Final-round voting in STAT Madness closes Monday, April 3 at 6 p.m. PT. Everyone is able to vote daily. Learn more at https://www.statnews.com/feature/stat-madness/stat-madness-2023/.

About ISB

Institute for Systems Biology (ISB) is a collaborative and cross-disciplinary non-profit biomedical research organization based in Seattle. We focus on some of the most pressing issues in human health, including aging, brain health, cancer, COVID-19, sepsis, as well as many infectious diseases. Our science is translational, and we champion sound scientific research that results in real-world clinical impacts. ISB is an affiliate of Providence, one of the largest not-for-profit health care systems in the United States. Follow us online at isbscience.org, and on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and Twitter.

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