ETSU Researchers Investigate SARS-CoV-2 Immune Response

From East Tennessee State University:

January 5, 2022

JOHNSON CITY — Members of the Center of Excellence in Inflammation, Infectious Disease, and Immunity (CIIDI) at East Tennessee State University have been making strides in understanding SARS-CoV-2, recently publishing their second article describing a study examining the immune reaction to SARS-CoV-2 (the virus responsible for COVID-19).

The article, “SARS-CoV-2 specific memory T cell epitopes identified in COVID-19-recovered subjects,” was published in Virus Research.

Given that protective antibodies naturally wane over time, the virus-specific T cell memory response is critically valuable to fight against SARS-CoV-2 reinfection and can be used to assess the duration of vaccine protection, according to Dr. Juan Zhao, assistant professor at ETSU Quillen College of Medicine.

“This study employs human samples from CIIDI’s well-established biorepository, and reveals that defined levels of SARS-CoV-2 specific T cell responses are generated in some, but not all, COVID-19-recovered subjects, fostering hope for the protection of a proportion of COVID-19-exposed individuals against reinfection,” said Zhao, who is lead author on the article.

The researchers are continuing to study aspects of the immune response in individuals who have infection-acquired immune response to COVID-19, as well as investigate patients who are experiencing COVID-19 “long haul” symptoms.

Individuals who would like to participate in this research can contact CIIDI’s Clinical Research staff at 423-430-2443.

This press release was produced by East Tennessee State University. The views expressed are the author's own.