Researchers around the globe are hitting the lab harder than ever to fight the coronavirus pandemic. At UT Health San Antonio, special funding has been awarded to nine researchers who are working on projects that have the potential to make an impact on this crisis.

The funds from the COVID-19 Rapid Response Pilot Program were mainly allocated from the Long School of Medicine, Office of the President and Office of the Vice President for Research. The awards were offered to help drive research to timely results that can then be submitted in larger National Institutes of Health grant proposals this summer.

“We’re in extraordinary times,” said Jennifer Sharpe Potter, Ph.D., M.P.H., vice dean for research, who leads the program. “Our clinicians are at the forefront of combating the pandemic and our researchers can do that in a different way.”

The awarded projects were selected based on several criteria, namely projects that could realistically produce short-term outcomes.

“One of the things we looked for was high-impact science and what we can do now with the resources we have at hand,” Dr. Potter said.

The program also encouraged a collaborative approach to science and looked for high levels of expertise in the researchers involved, according to Patrick Sung, Ph.D., professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Structural Biology, who led the review process. The awarded projects are diverse in scope, not all coming from a virology approach.

“We were looking at the expertise of the team,” said Dr. Sung. “A number of microbiologists and immunologists [were awarded] due to their very strong expertise. They have potentially high-impact proposals, even if they’re not virologists.”

Several of the awarded projects are responding to the urgent need to develop a vaccine. Nu Zhang, Ph.D., assistant professor in the Department of Microbiology, Immunology and Molecular Genetics, along with Yan Xiang, Ph.D., professor in the Department of Microbiology, Immunology and Molecular Genetics, are working to study a known vaccine platform called modified vaccinia ankara (MVA), which they will modify with a protein derived from COVID-19 to then be tested in mice.

Guangming Zhong, M.D., Ph.D., professor in the Department of Microbiology, Immunology and Molecular Genetics, and his team are working to develop an oral vaccine against COVID-19 based on an existing bacterium vector that the lab has worked with for years, observing that the vector can induce a protective immunity in the airway when delivered orally.

Evelien Bunnik, Ph.D., assistant professor in the Department of Microbiology, Immunology and Molecular Genetics, and her team are studying the presence of antibodies and specialized “memory cells” in people who have had COVID-19 to understand how long people remain immune against re-infection. They will analyze the most effective antibodies on the virus, which can then be used to create a vaccine.

Sidath Kumarapperuma, Ph.D., assistant professor in the Department of Radiology, is collaborating with William Phillips, M.D., nuclear medicine physician in the Department of Radiology, and Peter Dube, Ph.D., associate professor in the Department of Microbiology, Immunology and Molecular Genetics, to develop a novel biomimetic vaccine delivery system against SARS-CoV-2 infection, to then be evaluated in animal models.

Other projects focus on solving some of the fatal symptoms of the disease. Noting the cardiac complications of COVID-19 seen in many patients, Madesh Muniswamy, Ph.D., professor in the Department of Medicine, is leading a project to discover insights on the mechanisms that control mitochondrial function and cardiac damage associated with infection.

Listed below are all the projects awarded funds from the COVID-19 Rapid Response Pilot Program:

  • Sunil Ahuja, M.D., professor of medicine. Predictive Immune and Airway Monitoring of Hospitalized and Convalescent COVID-19 Patients. 
  • Evelien Bunnik, Ph.D., assistant professor of microbiology, immunology and molecular genetics. Longitudinal Analysis of SARS-CoV-2 Memory B-Cell and Neutralizing Antibody Responses After Natural Injection. 
  • Yogesh Gupta, Ph.D., assistant professor of biochemistry and structural biology. Mechanistic Understanding of SARS-CoV-2 RNA Methylation. 
  • Dmitri Ivanov, Ph.D., associate professor of biochemistry and structural biology. Identifying Host Proteins Targeted for Degradation by the Orf10 Protein of COVID-19.
  • Sidath Kumarapperuma, Ph.D., assistant professor of radiology. Biomimetic Antigen Delivery System Design for SARS-CoV-2 Vaccines. 
  • Madesh Muniswamy, Ph.D., professor of medicine. Understanding and Prevention of COVID-19 Induced Cardiomyopathy. 
  • Zhenming Xu, Ph.D., assistant professor of microbiology, immunology and molecular genetics. Role of the Polybasic Furin Cleavage Site Sequence in SARS-CoV-2 Biology and Therapeutic Implications. 
  • Nu Zhang, Ph.D., assistant professor of microbiology, immunology and molecular genetics. Antigen-Specific T-Cell Reponses to MVA-Vectored COVID-19 Subunit Vaccine. 
  • Guangming Zhong, M.D., Ph.D., professor of microbiology, immunology and molecular genetics. Using a Novel Intra-O-Vector to Deliver SARS-CoV-2 S Protein as an Oral Vaccine Against COVID-19.