Vaccine Induced Immunity in the Young and Aged

The over-arching goal of this proposal is to analyze SARS-CoV-2 antibody seroconversion rates in healthcare workers at the Emory University Hospital over the next year and to study adaptive immune responsesto SARS-CoV-2 infection during acute infection and at convalescence. These studies will draw on threemain sources of samples, either through an emerging infectious disease protocol at the Emory VaccineCenter Hope Clinic, through a sero-surveillance study initiated at Emory, and previously collected PBMCand serum samples from adult or elderly donors by Dr. Jorg Goronzy, respectively. We will develop andemploy a combination of antibody binding assays and viral neutralization assays to test the quantity andquality of the infection-induced antibody responses. This information will also be used to identify optimaldonors for single-cell antibody expression cloning, as we have previously described9-13. A recentlypurchased 10x instrument in our BSL3 facility at the Emory Vaccine Center will allow for a detailed analysisof the transcriptional profiles of innate and adaptive immune responses during acute SARS-CoV-2infection. The proposed studies will provide key insight into the dynamics of this devastating diseaseamong health care workers at a major metropolitan hospital in Atlanta. These efforts will also generate keyserological tools, provide an understanding of the humoral immune response to SARS-CoV-2 infection,and generate human monoclonal antibodies, with both diagnostic and therapeutic potential.