Glycyrrhetinic acid, the main active component of licorice, is a potent binder of high mobility group protein B1 (HMGB1), which significantly reduces virus-induced inflammatory response and viral replication and alleviates respiratory distress syndrome associated with viral infection (Bailly and Vergoten, 2020), and also reduces IL-33 levels in serum and bronchoalveolar fluid (Fu et al., 2016). Here, HMGB1 is linked to newborn respiratory distress syndrome.