Dear Colleagues,

Aging and pre-existing comorbid conditions including hypertension, malignancies, chronic infections, and chronic metabolic (obesity, diabetes), pulmonary, kidney, and cardiovascular diseases exacerbate the severity and duration of COVID-19. Scientists and clinicians are trying to understand how SARS-CoV-2 exacerbates the acute and long-term phases of the disease in advanced-age and comorbid populations. Relevant preclinical models can be studied to decipher early and late outcomes of infection in these high-risk populations at the levels of single cells, organoids, tissues, and whole organisms. For all these studies, the combination of different technical approaches ranging from multi-omics to imaging is a very useful tool. Research in the field is expected to provide important information, including knowledge to identify targets for better controlling early and late COVID-19 outcomes in comorbid and aged individuals.

This Special Issue of Viruses will be devoted to analyzing recent advances in the field and will propose future directions to improve our understanding of SARS-CoV-2–host interactions in the context of aging and comorbidities. Scientists worldwide are welcome to contribute articles, brief reports, technical notes, and reviews to show how they regard aging and comorbidities in preclinical models of COVID-19. In particular, we aim to discuss how aging and comorbid conditions exacerbate disease in COVID-19 patients and how the information emanating from animal models is amenable to better prognosis methods, preventive measures, and therapies in patients.

Dr. François Trottein
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

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Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Viruses is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

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• SARS-CoV-2
• aging
• comorbidity
• preclinical models
• prognosis
• therapies