Tom Gallagher, PhD, Professor, Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Loyola University Chicago, "Coronavirus Membrane Fusion"
Dr. Gallagher shares his group’s work, which aims to address two questions: 1. Which viral spike domains bind to attachment factors for SAR-CoV? 2. Does initial binding ‘ready’ spikes for subsequent stages? He shows that SARS-2 NTD loops contribute to cell binding and also have roles in regulating post-binding entry stages. He also introduces several uses for the in vitro VLP-EV fusion assay that reflects authentic SARS-CoV2 cell entry process, and can be used to measure fusion inhibitors, and other functional uses.
