WEBVTT
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Language: en

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Our lab studies the immunology of infectious
diseases and so when COVID-19 occurred, we

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were in a unique position to be able to respond
because this is sort of what we do, is look

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at how the immune system protects against
infection.

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Specifically, as far as a COVID vaccine, what
we’ve been doing is developing a vaccine

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against a parasitic infection, but it’s
a platform with which one can use to develop

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a vaccines against COVID-19 so what our research
efforts are in the lab is to develop what

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might be a second or third generation vaccine.

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So there’s two unique contributions that
we’re making to COVID-19 research through

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this lab.

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So the first is the work of Allie Donlan,
who is a graduate student, who has shown that

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an allergic immune response, we call a type-2
immune response, actually predisposes to severe

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disease and Allie has been able to show that
if you neutralize that type-2 immune response

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you actually protect an animal from COVID-19
suggest that we should be able to protect

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people by neutralizing allergic cytokines.

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We’ve seen both in the patient samples and
the mouse data that the immune response to

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the disease itself is very variable, and so
if we can understand what causes these variations

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in the host immune response or the host response
in general, we might be able to tailor specific

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personalized medicine than say a one-size-fits-all
medication.

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The second advance is that Mayuresh Abhyankar,
who is an assistant professor in the group,

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has shown that there is an adjuvant, something
you add to a vaccine that will promote a long-lived

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antibody response.

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What we have shown is the immune response
lasted for at least six months using our adjuvant

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system, so that’s pretty promising and that’s
one of the exciting aspects we want to apply

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this platform for the COVID vaccine.

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There is now five vaccines in the US that
are in phase 3 clinical trials.

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I’m really optimistic and I fully expect
that healthcare providers will be vaccinated

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probably at the end of this year or January
and then will go to then vaccinate people

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who have underlying illnesses that put them
at greatest risk and then finally will be

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to the general public I would imagine by spring/summer
of next year, so the vaccine will be widely

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available to everyone