PolyBio Research Foundation

BREAKING: Funding from Vitalik Buterin’s Balvi Fund Expands Long COVID Low-Dose Rapamycin Trial

💊 See participant requirements below—we are actively recruiting Long COVID patients for this trial.

Medford, MA , May 29, 2026 — PolyBio Research Foundation today announced new funding from the Balvi Fund to accelerate a clinical trial investigating low-dose rapamycin as a potential treatment for Long COVID. The funding will support an open-label extension phase that will allow all participants – including those initially randomized to placebo – to receive low-dose rapamycin during a defined follow-up period, an approach expected to improve willingness to enroll while preserving the rigor of the randomized controlled phase of the trial. The support will also allow study coordinators to conduct home visits for certain participants to collect blood samples, helping expand access for individuals who are too ill or geographically constrained to consistently travel to study sites.

The Balvi Fund is a direct giving and scientific investment fund established by Vitalik Buterin to support high-impact projects in biosecurity, pandemic prevention, and public health.

“Vitalik and the Balvi Fund have been incredible supporters of both PolyBio and the broader Long COVID research space over the years,” said Dr. Amy Proal, President of PolyBio Research Foundation. “This new grant continues that commitment in a meaningful way by helping us run a stronger and more accessible clinical trial while generating the kind of mechanistic immune data needed to move the field toward targeted treatments.”

The trial is based on a mechanistic hypothesis: that low-dose rapamycin may recalibrate aspects of the immune response in a way that improves the body’s ability to suppress chronic viral activity. This approach draws on evidence from the healthspan and aging field, where analogs of rapamycin have been shown to enhance antiviral interferon signaling, modulate T cell exhaustion, and improve antibody responses to vaccination.

To directly investigate these effects in Long COVID, the lab of Akiko Iwasaki at Yale University is conducting deep immune profiling on participant blood samples collected before and after treatment. These analyses are designed to determine whether rapamycin increases interferon signaling, reverses features of T cell exhaustion, and strengthens antiviral immune responses—data that could help clarify how the drug should be deployed in Long COVID and related chronic conditions.

By adding an open-label extension, the enhanced trial is positioned to generate high-resolution data on how rapamycin shapes immune function in Long COVID. These findings will help determine whether—and in which patient subsets—the drug may have therapeutic value, advancing the field toward more precise, mechanism-based treatment strategies.

🏥 The Cohen Center for Recovery from Complex Chronic Illness is actively recruiting for this Long COVID trial.

Interested in participating? Participants should:

-be 18 years or older
-have a confirmed Long COVID diagnosis from a physician
-prepare to travel to the CoRE clinic in NYC for clinical visits (if possible).

Email [email protected] to apply.

Read more: https://polybio.org/funding-from-vitalik-buterins-balvi-fund-expands-long-covid-rapamycin-trial/

Breaking: PolyBio-Supported Study Identifies Association between HHV-6 Reactivation & Long COVID Symptom Severity

A collaborative study between the laboratory of Akiko Iwasaki at Yale University and the Cohen Center for Recovery from Complex Chronic Illness at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai has identified a potential link between reactivation of the herpesvirus HHV-6 and Long COVID symptom severity. The work adds to growing evidence that chronic viral reactivation may contribute to the biological mechanisms underlying Long COVID.

The study examined whether reactivation of human herpesviruses could be associated with persistent symptoms following SARS-CoV-2 infection. Prior research has linked herpesvirus reactivation—particularly Epstein-Barr virus (EBV)—to more severe acute COVID-19 and increased risk of developing Long COVID. However, less is known about how active herpesvirus shedding relates to ongoing symptom burden over time.

To investigate this question, the research team enrolled 45 participants with Long COVID and 45 age- and sex-matched controls. Participants completed detailed symptom surveys and provided saliva samples at multiple timepoints across two consecutive days. The team measured salivary cortisol, testosterone, and estradiol levels while simultaneously testing saliva for DNA from multiple herpesviruses—including EBV, HSV-1/2, HCMV, and HHV-6 A/B—alongside SARS-CoV-2 RNA.

The researchers found that detection of EBV and HHV-6 DNA was highest early in the morning. While overall herpesvirus shedding and hormone levels did not significantly differ between Long COVID participants and controls, one signal stood out: higher levels of salivary HHV-6 DNA were associated with greater Long COVID symptom severity, including stronger associations with anxiety, depression, and overall functional impairment.

The findings suggest that HHV-6 reactivation may contribute to chronic disease processes in at least a subset of Long COVID patients. The researchers note that while salivary EBV shedding was not associated with Long COVID in this cohort, EBV could still play a role earlier in disease progression or within tissues not sampled in the study.

The work also raises important translational questions. If future studies replicate the findings, HHV-6 could become a target for biomarker-guided clinical trials and therapeutic intervention strategies. Researchers suggest that salivary virome profiling may eventually help identify biologically distinct patient subsets who could benefit from tailored antiviral or immunomodulatory therapies.

Read more: https://polybio.org/polybio-supported-study-identifies-association-between-hhv-6-reactivation-and-long-covid-severity/

Breaking: PolyBio Launches Commercialization Advisory Network to Accelerate Long COVID Diagnostics and Treatments

https://polybio.org/polybio-launches-commercialization-advisory-network-to-accelerate-long-covid-diagnostics-and-treatments/

PolyBio Research Foundation today announced the formal launch of its Commercialization Advisory Network, a new initiative designed to accelerate the translation of Long COVID and related chronic disease discoveries into clinical diagnostics and targeted treatments.

The Network held its inaugural meeting on Friday, May 15 at the Harvard Innovation Labs in Boston, bringing together leaders across diagnostics, biotechnology, healthcare investment, reimbursement strategy, and translational medicine.

The Network will help guide the commercialization and deployment of next-generation diagnostic platforms capable of identifying key biological drivers of Long COVID, including persistent viral reservoirs, pathogen reactivation, and immune dysfunction.

“The bottleneck in Long COVID is no longer simply discovery,” said Caroline Rossiter, PolyBio’s Director of Operations and Innovation. “Academic researchers are increasingly identifying clear biological abnormalities in patients. The challenge now is to help them translate those findings into validated diagnostics, targeted clinical trials, and treatments that can actually reach patients. The Commercialization Advisory Network was built specifically to help solve that problem.”

A central focus of the initiative is VIPER, PolyBio’s large-scale Long COVID diagnostics validation program. Modeled in part after successful HIV assay validation efforts, VIPER is designed to rigorously compare and validate diagnostic technologies across laboratories and patient cohorts, with the goal of identifying the assays best positioned for clinical deployment and use in mechanistic clinical trials.

Members of the Network bring expertise spanning the full translation process: diagnostic product development, liquid biopsy technologies, reimbursement and insurance strategy, venture creation, companion diagnostics, and biotechnology commercialization. The group includes leaders from StudioDx, AnywhereDx, Exosome Diagnostics, Santé Ventures, Invivyd, Enanta Pharmaceuticals, American Cancer Society BrightEdge, and The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research.

The first meeting focused on strategies to accelerate the validation, commercialization, and clinical adoption of Long COVID diagnostics being advanced through the Long COVID Cure Initiative. Discussions included regulatory strategy, payer adoption, clinical trial integration, commercialization pathways for academic technologies, and approaches to building companion diagnostics that can help match patients with targeted therapies.

While initially focused on Long COVID through PolyBio’s Long COVID Cure Initiative (LCCI), the Network will also help guide translational efforts in related infection-associated chronic illnesses including chronic Lyme disease, Alzheimer’s, and aspects of human aging increasingly linked to chronic infection and immune dysfunction.

MEET SELECT MEMBERS OF THE COMMERCIALIZATION NETWORK

DEVIN CAMPBELL, Prodct

Devin is the Founder of Prodct, where he works with scientific and technology-driven organizations to build products that translate complex ideas into scalable real-world tools.

HANNAH MAMUSZKA, Alva10

Hannah is the Founder and Managing Partner of Alva10, a healthcare investment firm focused on helping diagnostic companies create strategies for insurance coverage.

FARNAZ BAKHSHI, ACS Brightdge

Farnaz is Director of Innovation at ACS BrightEdge, the American Cancer Society’s mission-driven venture capital and innovation arm, where she focuses on advancing high-impact healthcare technologies from early discovery to commercialization.

TARA KIEFFER, PhD, Enanta Pharmaceuticals

Tara is Chief Product Strategy Officer at Enanta Pharmaceuticals, where she focuses on advancing innovative therapeutic platforms for complex diseases.

OMAR KHALIL, Santé Ventures

Omar is a Managing Director at Santé Ventures, where he focuses on investing in and scaling innovative healthcare and life sciences companies. He has experience in venture capital, company building, and commercialization strategy.

To meet the whole Commercialization Advisory Network, go to: https://polybio.org/polybio-commercialization-advisory-network/

Learn more about the Long COVID Cure Initiative here: https://polybio.org/lcci/