The Long COVID Cure Initiative

Long COVID has left hundreds of millions of people worldwide with crushing fatigue, neurological dysfunction, and other life-altering symptoms. Despite this immense burden, there are still no FDA-approved treatments and no validated diagnostic tests to guide care.

We face an inflection point: will this remain a mass disabling condition, or will we summon the resources and resolve to solve it?

PolyBio has built deep scientific collaborations that have accelerated the discovery of root-cause drivers of Long COVID. With the launch of the Long COVID Cure Initiative in the Fall of 2025, we are poised to move beyond discovery into diagnostics and treatment at scale to:

• Develop diagnostic tools through programs like VIPER that identify the root causes of Long COVID and related infection-driven conditions with precision.
• Work with industry to deliver personalized treatments by linking each patient’s biology to the therapies most likely to help.
• Accelerate cures by mobilizing transformative collaborations across science, industry, and philanthropy.

This is not about incremental progress. It is about rewriting the story of Long COVID—transforming despair into hope, restoring lives, and unlocking solutions that will strengthen both human health and the global economy.

To unlock treatments, we must first have the right tools to measure the disease. That is where VIPER — the Viral Persistence Repeat Donor Cohort — comes in. VIPER is a pioneering $8M initiative that will:

• Validate the first diagnostic tests for persistent SARS-CoV-2, a key driver of Long COVID
• Accelerate clinical trials of promising antivirals, antibodies, and immunotherapies
• Open the door for pharma engagement, just as diagnostics transformed HIV research
• Lay the groundwork for broader diagnostics for other infection driven chronic conditions

In short: VIPER is the catalyst. It creates the infrastructure needed for real treatments, and ultimately cures, to reach patients.

The strength of VIPER lies in its world-class team: (we have headshots if that makes the page look better)

• Dr. Amy Proal (PolyBio Foundation, Mount Sinai) – Global leader in infection-associated chronic disease, architect of the $40M Long COVID Research Consortium.
• Dr. Steven Deeks (UCSF) – Legendary HIV researcher, now leading the first Long COVID clinical trials at UCSF.
• Dr. Michael Peluso (UCSF) – Infectious disease physician with extensive experience caring for Long COVID patients and translating clinical samples into discovery.
• Dr. Timothy Henrich (UCSF) – Global expert in virus persistence, tissue analysis, and experimental medicine.
• The Long Covid Research Consortium – A groundbreaking global network of scientists founded by PolyBio. LCRC members are developing innovative diagnostic platforms for Long COVID, which will be rigorously tested and validated through VIPER.

Dr. Amy Proal (PolyBio Foundation, Mount Sinai) – Global leader in infection-associated chronic disease, architect of the $40M Long COVID Research Consortium.

Dr. Steven Deeks (UCSF) – Legendary HIV researcher, now leading the first Long COVID clinical trials at UCSF.

Dr. Michael Peluso (UCSF) – Infectious disease physician with extensive experience caring for Long COVID patients and translating clinical samples into discovery.

Dr. Timothy Henrich (UCSF) – Global expert in virus persistence, tissue analysis, and experimental medicine.

The Long Covid Research Consortium – A groundbreaking global network of scientists founded by PolyBio. LCRC members are developing innovative diagnostic platforms for Long COVID, which will be rigorously tested and validated through VIPER.

1. Recruitment of Participants – 150 individuals with and without Long COVID are enrolled in UCSF’s Long-Term Infection with Novel Coronavirus (LIINC) Study.
2. Collection of Samples – A carefully curated set of blood, saliva, stool, and tissue samples is collected and stored in a professional biobank.
3. Cross-Lab Testing – Multiple top laboratories receive identical, de-identified samples and apply their most promising diagnostic platforms.
4. Head-to-Head Evaluation – VIPER’s data team compares results to identify the most accurate, scalable tests.
5. Path to Patients – The strongest diagnostics are fast-tracked into clinical trials at UCSF, Mount Sinai, and with pharma partners.

This collaborative, comparative design ensures transparency, rigor, and speed — producing results that regulators, industry, and clinicians can trust.

Insights and innovations from LCCI will not sit in academic journals. Rather they will be directly communicated to physicians, including those at the CoRE Clinic, where PolyBio’s Dr. Amy Proal serves as Scientific Director alongside Nash Family Director Dr. David Putrino. CoRE serves as a beta-testing site for novel Long COVID or chronic tick-borne/vector-borne infection diagnostic tests and treatment protocols informed by key PolyBio project findings. CoRE also powers a free medical education program, which recently released the first-ever Infection-Associated Chronic Disease Provider Manual. This landmark resource equips clinicians with practical guidance on diagnosis, multidisciplinary care models, and targeted treatments for patients with Long COVID and other complex chronic conditions.

VIPER is not just a scientific effort — it is designed from the start with commercialization in mind.

• Startup Creation: Promising diagnostic platforms emerging from VIPER will be incubated into new companies or integrated into existing biomedical start-ups. These include open source companies.
• Companion Diagnostics: Top assays will be positioned as “companion diagnostics” — the tools pharma uses to select trial participants and measure success, which drives FDA approval.
• Pharma Engagement: PolyBio leaders work directly with companies like Invivyd, ImmunityBio, and Enanta, ensuring that validated diagnostics are built into upcoming clinical trials
• Multi-Disease Platforms: Diagnostics validated in VIPER may be able to expand beyond Long COVID into Lyme, Epstein Barr, and other infection-driven diseases, multiplying impact.

This integrated pathway ensures that VIPER’s discoveries do not sit on the shelf — they reach patients quickly and sustainably.

Diagnostics are not the finish line for the LCCI — they are the key that unlocks pharma engagement and effective treatments.

• Patient Selection: Identifying which patients harbor persistent virus means clinical trials can enroll the right participants.
• Measuring Effectiveness: Diagnostics allow researchers to see if a drug is truly reducing viral persistence, making trials faster and more definitive.
• Targeted Care: Once validated, diagnostics empower physicians to prescribe antivirals, antibodies, or immune therapies with confidence.

Just as HIV diagnostics made it possible to test, refine, and ultimately approve life-saving drugs, VIPER diagnostics will pave the way for the first effective Long COVID treatments.