Erica Ollmann Saphire

Jul 31, 2024 | nature.com | Sydney I. Ramirez |Farhoud Faraji |Henry Sutton |Erica Ollmann Saphire |Hyun Kim

AbstractThe upper airway is an important site of infection, but immune memory in the human upper airway is poorly understood, with implications for COVID-19 and many other human diseases1,2,3,4. Here we demonstrate that nasal and nasopharyngeal swabs can be used to obtain insights into these challenging problems, and define distinct immune cell populations, including antigen-specific memory B cells and T cells, in two adjacent anatomical sites in the upper airway.

Jan 25, 2024 | nature.com | Michael Nguyen |Norazizah Shafee |Katarzyna Dobaczewska |Sara McArdle |Sarah R. Leist |Kenneth Kim | +3 more

AbstractSARS-CoV-2-reactive T cells are detected in some healthy unexposed individuals. Human studies indicate these T cells could be elicited by the common cold coronavirus OC43. To directly test this assumption and define the role of OC43-elicited T cells that are cross-reactive with SARS-CoV-2, we develop a model of sequential infections with OC43 followed by SARS-CoV-2 in HLA-B*0702 and HLA-DRB1*0101 Ifnar1−/− transgenic mice.

Mar 28, 2023 | newswise.com | Shane Crotty |Erica Ollmann Saphire

There are no vaccines or therapies available for lymphocytic choriomeningitis virus (LCMV) infection. This pathogen spreads easily and is extremely common in people worldwide. Infection with LCMV can cause birth defects in developing fetuses, and severe illness and even death in the immuncompromised. New findings from La Jolla Institute for Immunology (LJI) scientists show how an engineered antibody can target LCMV and neutralize the virus.