IL6 and diabetic kidney disease: When azeliragon, a RAGE inhibitor that demonstrated safety but not efficacy in Phase III clinical trials involving more than 2000 patients with Alzheimer Disease and diabetic nephropathy, was perfused at its Cmax at 100 nM47 through the vascular channel of human alveolus chips infected with H3N2 influenza virus while exposed to cyclic physiological (5%) strain, it significantly blocked induction of multiple cytokines, including IL-6, IL-8, IP-10 and RANTES (Fig. 8c), and similar effects are produced using a different RAGE inhibitor drug (FPS-ZM1) (Supplementary Fig. 12a).