Macrophage migration inhibitory factor (MIF) is implicated in a wide range of disease states, where elevated MIF levels are markers for tumorigenesis (Bach et al., 2008; Noe and Mitchell, 2020), sepsis (Toldi et al., 2021), acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) (Donnelly et al., 1997; Lai et al., 2003), arthritis (Onodera et al., 1999; Kim et al., 2007; Llamas-Covarrubias et al., 2012), colitis (de Jong et al., 2001), and Malaria (Han et al., 2010; Sun et al., 2012; Baeza Garcia et al., 2018). The gene discussed is MIF; the disease is acute respiratory distress syndrome.