Jinyi Tang, PhD, a postdoctoral researcher mentored by Jie Sun, PhD, was selected to receive an NIH K99/R00 award. This prestigious grant will fund up to two years of Tang’s research at UVA and another three years when he transitions into an independent faculty position. Tang’s project, “Regulation and Function of Respiratory Mucosal Immunity Post SARS-CoV-2 Vaccination and Infection,” will explore how the immune system generates protective responses in the respiratory system with an eye towards developing improved vaccines against respiratory viruses.
Vaccines injected into muscles, like the current COVID and flu vaccines, are effective because they train the immune system to recognize viruses or viral fragments in advance of a real infection. These vaccines generate strong systemic immune responses, bringing a person’s antiviral defenses online throughout their body after infection. However, because the vaccine is delivered through the blood, the body’s response is strongest in the blood. Tang’s previous finding in the Sun Lab has shown that while people vaccinated against COVID have good immunity in their blood, the immune responses in their mucus membranes can be suboptimal. COVID infects humans through these membranes, which in part explains why the current COVID vaccine is good at preventing severe disease, but does not provide complete immunity against infection.
Tang and the Sun Lab have shown that administering a vaccine booster to the mucosal membranes provides better protection against COVID infection. There are, however, many outstanding questions for Tang to address. The behaviors of B cells, T cells, and the ability of antibody-secreting cells to produce the protective molecule Immunoglobulin A all must be studied. Tang will also study how pairing mucosal and current vaccination methods protect against COVID in children and animal models. “The work I’m going to do will show how we can most effectively stimulate our immune systems,” says Tang.
There are other challenges facing mucosal vaccine development. One of the biggest, says Tang, is delivering a mucosal vaccine to the entire respiratory tract. “A nasal spray, for example, is likely to be more effective in the upper parts of your respiratory system. You may not have the same immunity in lower areas like the windpipe and lungs.” Sun and Tang hope their research impels further research to address this problem.
Tang credits the collegial, collaborative research atmosphere at UVA for the success of his research and award application. Working with Sun and other UVA researchers, including Gerald Teague, MD, Justin Taylor, PhD, Anne Sperling, PhD, as well as Shan-Lu Liu, MD, PhD from The Ohio State University, enables Tang to access expertise in fields varying from statistics to pulmonology. “I have perfect co-mentors from every area,” says Tang. “This award is a huge milestone in my career, and they’re one of the reasons I got it.”