Taken together our work suggests that BTK inhibitors maybe repurposed for the use in sepsis (or other conditions associated with excessive local or systemic inflammation including COVID-19) due to their ability to reduce systemic inflammation (cytokine storm), their ability to enhance the phagocytosis of macrophages and switch macrophages from the pro-inflammatory M1 to the anti-inflammatory M2 phenotype. The gene discussed is BTK; the disease is COVID-19.