Cytokine Storms in Rheumatic Diseases and COVID-19—Randy Cron, MD, PhD—Director of Pediatric Rheumatology, UAB Hospital
Finding Genius Podcast
Richard Jacobs
4.4 • 1K Ratings
🗓️ 18 May 2020
⏱️ 29 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Director of Pediatric Rheumatology at UAB Hospital, Dr. Randy Cron, joins the show to discuss his work and research as a physician-scientist.
In this episode, you will learn the following:
- What rheumatology is and how rheumatic diseases work
- How often chronic arthritis occurs in children
- How macrophage activation syndrome (a type of cytokine storm) may explain why some people become severely ill or die from COVID-19
Dr. Randy Cron holds an MD and a PhD in immunology. As a physician-scientist, he sees both sides of the coin: the research and the clinical medicine it informs.
Dr. Cron primarily sees patients in the field of pediatric rheumatology and is currently studying macrophage activation syndrome, which is a potentially life-threatening type of cytokine storm syndrome that is a complication of some rheumatic diseases and infections—including COVID-19.
Dr. Cron aims to study the genetics behind this syndrome in order to identify patients who are predisposed to developing it, and to learn more about the pathophysiology of the syndrome in order to improve treatments.
He also explains the basics of certain rheumatic diseases, such as rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, and juvenile idiopathic arthritis, and touches on a number of other interesting topics.
Tune in to learn more.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Forget frequently asked questions. |
| 0:02.0 | Common sense, common knowledge, or Google. |
| 0:05.0 | How about advice from a real genius? |
| 0:07.0 | 95% of people in any profession are good enough to be qualified and licensed. |
| 0:11.0 | 5% go above and beyond. They become very good at what they do, but only 0.1% are real Jesus. |
| 0:18.0 | Richard Jacobs has made it his life's mission to find them for you. He hunts down and interviews geniuses in every field, sleep science, |
| 0:25.7 | cancer, stem cells, ketogenic diets, and more. Here come the geniuses. This is the Finding Genius |
| 0:32.1 | podcast that Richard Jacobs. This is the Finding Genius Podcast. |
| 0:33.0 | That is Richard Jacobs. |
| 0:35.0 | Hello, this is Richard Jacobs with the Finding Genius Podcast. |
| 0:42.0 | I have Dr. Randy Kron. |
| 0:44.0 | He's the director of Pediatric Rheumatology |
| 0:46.4 | at UAB Hospital. |
| 0:48.6 | He's also a clinical scientist. |
| 0:49.8 | He studies macrophage activation syndrome. and he received his MD from UCLA and |
| 0:55.0 | completed a pediatric residency at Stanford and a pediatric rheumatology |
| 0:59.2 | fellowship at University of Washington. So we're gonna talk about his work as it sounds like it being a physician scientist. So Dr. Kron, Randy, thanks for coming. |
| 1:08.4 | Yeah, thanks for having me. So would you call yourself a physician scientist? Is that where you are? Yeah, I think so. I mean I even before I got my MD I got my PhD in immunology at the University of Chicago and and then I had to decide whether to go back to med school at that point because I really like the science but did and I'm glad I did because like you said physician scientists I think it it's you know having the MD and seeing patients |
| 1:33.6 | specifically for what I'm doing now really drove my research career. Yeah you know |
| 1:40.0 | I'm sure it's that's like the old saying the the people in the field you know the doctors the |
| 1:45.1 | clinicians are thinking the researchers have no idea what's really going on and the |
| 1:49.7 | researchers are saying well you know this is what the science is saying, the doctors don't know. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Richard Jacobs, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Richard Jacobs and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.