Huel Cox interned as an undergraduate research fellow at the Department of Cancer Biology, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute

"As we are all incredibly aware, the COVID-19 pandemic has torn through the world and has, unfortunately, left those who are most at risk and underserved by the medical field the most vulnerable. Still, tragically little is known about the virus, SARS-CoV-2, and its variants, and most notable is the mechanism by which the virus initiates the most pathogenic, deadly symptom that has been dubbed the "cytokine storm" that is most responsible for the acute respiratory distress syndrome characteristic of severe infection (2). Over the summer, my group sought to elucidate this mechanism based on recent research involving the human transcription factor, NFAT (nuclear factor of activated T-cell), due to the suspected role of activated T-helper-1 cells (2,3) in the "cytokine storm."