Sarah R. Leist

May 3, 2024 | nature.com | Elizabeth Anderson |Jennifer Diaz |Sarah R. Leist |Alexandra Schafer |John Powers |Ralph S Baric | +2 more

AbstractWhole virus-based inactivated SARS-CoV-2 vaccines adjuvanted with aluminum hydroxide have been critical to the COVID-19 pandemic response.

Feb 20, 2024 | nature.com | Ching-Lin Hsieh |Sarah R. Leist |John Powers |Jonathan C. Schisler |Ralph S Baric |Alexandra L. Tse

AbstractEver-evolving SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern (VOCs) have diminished the effectiveness of therapeutic antibodies and vaccines. Developing a coronavirus vaccine that offers a greater breadth of protection against current and future VOCs would eliminate the need to reformulate COVID-19 vaccines. Here, we rationally engineer the sequence-conserved S2 subunit of the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein and characterize the resulting S2-only antigens.

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.

Sep 25, 2023 | nature.com | Yixuan Hou |Shiho Chiba |Sarah R. Leist |Rita M. Meganck |Alexandra Schafer |Rhianna E. Lee | +7 more

AbstractThe pathogenic and cross-species transmission potential of SARS-CoV-2-related coronaviruses (CoVs) remain poorly characterized. Here we recovered a wild-type pangolin (Pg) CoV GD strain including derivatives encoding reporter genes using reverse genetics. In primary human cells, PgCoV replicated efficiently but with reduced fitness and showed less efficient transmission via airborne route compared with SARS-CoV-2 in hamsters.