Akiko Iwasaki - September 23, 2020

Akiko Iwasaki, PhD, Waldemar Von Zedtwitz Professor of Immunobiology; of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology; and of Dermatology, Yale University School of Medicine; Investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, "Immune response to SARS-CoV-2"

In her talk, Dr. Iwasaki discussed novel insight into the immune response to SARS-CoV-2. COVID-19 has a large variety of disease outcomes across various demographic groups, including long-term effects of the disease far after acute infection. The viral load in the nasopharynx is maintained in patients with severe disease, whereas it is eventually lost in those with moderate disease. There is a correlated level of cytokines and interferons with viral load. Interferon-alpha remains at elevated levels in the first 12 days for patients who are deceased vs. those who are discharged; particularly, interferon types 1, 2, and 3 become elevated.

Sex differences were also explored in their study. Notably, CCL5 and CXCL10 is elevated in both sexes, but IL-8 and IL-18 are more elevated in male patients. Males with higher ages and BMI were worse off and also had lower levels of T cell activation. Males were found to develop more inflammatory cytokine responses than females at baseline, but females developed better T cell immunity than males at baseline.