Chyuan-Sheng (Victor) Lin - January 20, 2021

Chyuan-Sheng (Victor) Lin, PhD, Genetically Modified Mouse Model Shared Resource (GMMMSR), Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center, Columbia University Medical Center, "New COVID-19 Mouse Models for COVID-19 Research"

Since the start of the pandemic, Dr. Lin has developed three new mouse lines for the study of COVID-19. The vast majority of work in mice related to infection by SARS-CoV-2 utilizes the K18-hACE2 line of mice expressing the human ACE2 receptor under control of the keratin-18 (K18) promoter. However, SARS-CoV-2 infection in these mice is rapidly fatal, and systemwide expression precludes targeted study of infection in specific tissues relevant to COVID-19 in humans. Dr. Lin has produced two lines with cre-inducible ACE2 expression under control of the CAG promoter, with and without an eGFP tag (ROSA26-CAG-STOP-hAce2C9-IRES-(eGFP)). He has produced a third line with unconditional (ubiquitous) expression of human ACE2 under control of CAG. These mice are being deposited in GMMMSR, and will become more readily available to the research community in the coming weeks/months. Dr. Lin encourages any investigators interested in using these mouse lines to contact his group at [email protected] or (212)-851-4716.